


Run A-F.O.W.L

by Ninja_Librarian



Series: The Many Adventures of Duckburg's Heroes! [15]
Category: Darkwing Duck (Cartoon 1991), DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: F/M, Femme Fatale: A one woman force of chaos, Fenton really needs therapy, M/M, Mrs. Beakley needs therapy, Webby needs therapy, found family is best family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:33:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 50,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28643004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ninja_Librarian/pseuds/Ninja_Librarian
Summary: Three weeks ago, after a humiliating defeat at the hands of Darkwing Duck, F.O.W.L Agent Femme Fatale vowed revenge. But not for her organization. This revenge is purely for herself. Shewilltake Darkwing Duck's weapon, the gas gun, as her own, settling an old score with the formidable S.H.U.S.H Agent Twenty-Two once and for all.But Darkwing Duck isn't the only one caught in the cross-hairs of an old feud when Femme Fatale taunts Webby with a mention of the girl's mother, whose fate is unknown to Webby. Is she dead? Alive? A spy? How does Femme Fatale know Webby's mother, and what happened to her? Desperate for answers, Webby and Gosalyn stowaway on the quest to retrieve the gas gun from F.O.W.L's clutches.Webby knows that her Granny prepared her for anything and everything, and she has spent years obsessing over Clan McDuck and their family history. But is she prepared to learn the truth about her own family? And why is the gas gun so valuable to Femme Fatale? And why is Mrs. Beakley so anxious to have the gas gun returned before S.H.U.S.H learns of its existence? Will Darkwing Duck be able to retrieve his weapon... and what will happen if he can't?
Relationships: Daisy Duck/Donald Duck, Drake Mallard/Launchpad McQuack, Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera/Gandra Dee
Series: The Many Adventures of Duckburg's Heroes! [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1478648
Comments: 51
Kudos: 100





	1. Chapter 1

“Tonight is going to be the best night ever!” Webby proclaimed as she slid down the bannister, doing a flip and landing on her feet at the bottom.

“Pink, I’m starting to think you overuse that phrase,” Lena said, walking down the stairs alongside Violet, Gosalyn, and the triplets.

“Why are you even so excited about this party?” Gosalyn asked, jumping the last two stairs so that she landed with a thud at the bottom. “It sounds like it’s mostly going to be incredibly boring, full of speeches and politics and junk.”

“I’m excited for a lot of reasons, but mostly because this is the first time in over a decade that McDuck Manor has hosted such a large event!” Webby said, spinning slightly as she looked around the room in wonder as it was in the process of being decorated and prepped for the night under the watchful eye of Duckworth. “And it’s going to be absolutely perfect!”

“Webs, you’re going to jinx it,” Louie said, his hands tucked into the front pocket of his hoodie. “Then no more parties for anyone ever.”

“No!” Webby said, pointing at her friend. “Nope, don’t even say that, don’t even think that! I’m not jinxing anything! In fact, that’s why we’re here! To anti-jinx this party!”

“Is there a spell for that?” Huey asked Lena, who shrugged.

“We’re going to make sure this party goes off without a single hitch!” Webby declared.

Behind her, Scrooge chuckled as he came up behind Webby, putting a hand on her shoulder, but addressed the woman beside him, saying, “Don’t you worry about a thing, Ms. Owlson. Your campaign is already off to a great start if you’ve got this one here looking out for you.”

“Thank you, Webby,” Zan Owlson said to the young girl. “And thank you, Mr. McDuck, for hosting tonight. It means a lot to me to know that I have your support as I run for Mayor.”

“Ms. Owlson, you’re smart, resourceful, honest, trustworthy, and proven yourself to be an excellent leader in the time I’ve known you. I know that, under your guidance, Duckburg will thrive,” Scrooge said. “So it is a privilege and an honor to see you take this next step in your career, and I very much look forward to the day I can refer to you as _Mayor_ Owlson.”

Zan smiled, face and voice happy and genuine as she said, “And you’re hoping for an exemption from my proposed tax plan, aren’t you?”

“I’ve seen your plans for this city, and while I approve mightily, can you blame an old miser for tryin’ his luck?” Scrooge said, winking at her. “Alright, kids, Ms. Owlson and I need to finish some work up in my study. We leave everything else in very capable hands.”

He patted Webby’s shoulder, then headed up the stairs, Zan beside him.

Webby clapped her hands together and said, “Alright, team. Louie, Violet, you two go down to the kitchens and help Granny get the caterers set up and organized. Lena, Huey, decorations. Dewey, Gosalyn, we need—” Her words were cut off as something bumped into her, knocking Webby off her feet.

The adult female duck carrying the large vase of flowers gasped and set it aside, rushing to help Webby up.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” The woman said, reaching up to brush a strand of her short black bob back. “I didn’t see you at all.”

“It’s okay,” Webby assured her. “No harm done! It’s a little bit of chaos in here. That’s why we’re here, to reign it in!”

“Glad to hear it,” The woman said, smiling. “There’s too much chaos in the world. It’s always nice to know that there are people who do whatever it takes to bring about order.”

“Just doing my part,” Webby said, beaming up at her. She stuck out her hand. “I’m Webby.”

The woman’s smile simply grew a bit bigger as she shook Webby’s hand. “It’s very lovely to meet you, Webby. I’m Em.”

“Do you want help moving this vase, Em?” Webby asked.

“No thank you,” Em said, picking it up again. “I’ve got everything under control.”

Webby nodded and let Em pass, going over towards the wall near the fireplace, where she set down the vase, being very particular about where it sat as she half-listened to Webby once again start to give out orders to her friends.

Em smirked to herself. The kids and everyone else were so distracted, they didn’t even notice anything different about the floorboard the vase had just been on.

So far, her day was off to a great start.

*****

Fenton lightly kicked his feet against the exam table, watching Elise as she made some sort of note in the file in her hands.

“So…” He said, breaking the silence between them. “Am I… Am I good to go?”

Elise took a deep breath and closed the file, putting the pen into the pocket of her coat. “Yes, you are clear to return to the field as Gizmoduck.”

Fenton leapt off the exam table. “Great! Thanks, Elise, I’ll see you—”

“Sit back down,” Elise said sharply. “I’m not finished with you yet.”

Fenton had been afraid she was going to say that. He had hoped he’d be out the door by now—before she could stop him, before she could say what he knew was coming and was dreading. But, obediently, he sat back down.

“Shouldn’t you be getting ready for the big night?” Fenton said, doing what he did best. Rambling. “Bet you’re excited. And proud of Zan. She’s going to be a great mayor, she’s got my vote, and—”

“Don’t change the subject,” Elise said flatly, tossing aside the file onto the nearby counter before pulling over a chair. “We’re not talking about Zan. We’re talking about you.”

Fenton took a deep breath, then said, “I thought you said there wasn’t any long-lasting damage. At least, nothing that had shown up on the scans and the tests you ran. That everything is functioning as it should be. You even said that the feathers on my back were growing in faster than you expected.”

“And all of that is true.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“Fenton,” Elise said and Fenton tried not to cringe at her tone of voice. He’d rather her voice be biting and calling him an idiot than the much calmer, gentler tone she was now using. “Your body has healed—at a remarkable rate, I might add, and with much more of your original health than I expected. But I’m still worried about you. Mentally, emotionally…” She took a deep breath and it took all of Fenton’s willpower to keep holding her gaze and not turn away from her. “You went through a lot, Fenton. Physically and psychologically. Only you know everything that happened on that island. The rest of us, we can put some of the pieces together. We can make guesses. But what we do know is that it was all incredibly traumatic on your mind as well as your body. So while, yes, you are more than ready to return to the field physically, as your doctor and friend I’m much more concerned about your mental well-being. I think it’d be better if you waited a little more time. Go away for a little while, maybe. Take some time for your emotional health now that you don’t have to worry about your physical health.”

Fenton sighed. “Elise, I understand why you’re worried about me. Why everyone’s worried. You, and my mom, and Gandra, and Drake, and Mr. McDuck—heck, even Dr. Gearloose has expressed his concern. Well, you know. In his own unique way. But I’m fine. Really. I’m just ready to get back to normal, and for everyone to stop treating me like I’m made of glass or something, okay? I’m ready to be Gizmoduck again. I _need_ to be Gizmoduck again. Besides, it’s not fair on Drake to keep making him work overtime.”

Elise silently studied him before slowly saying, “If it gets to be too much—”

“It’s not too much,” Fenton argued. “It won’t be too much. It’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. I _am_ fine.”

Elise was quiet again, then said, “Alright. If you’re sure.”

“I’m very, very sure.”

Elise nodded and she smiled softly. “Then welcome back, Gizmoduck.”

*****

“What did Elise say?” Gandra asked, setting aside the tools she had been working with when she heard Fenton enter the lab. She rushed over to him, lightly grabbing his forearms and studying his face intently.

Fenton smiled and tried not to wince. He didn’t like the concern in her eyes. At least she wasn’t using her eyebots to scan his entire body, looking for something the doctors may have missed. And he knew she had done it, at least once. Several days after returning home, he heard his mother and Gandra whispering together while he was half-asleep; he had heard something about the doctors and tests and the MRI and a general state of doubt and worry, and then there was a moment of silence before Gandra whispered that she couldn’t detect anything out of the ordinary.

Fenton didn’t like seeing the worry in Gandra’s face, no matter how well she tried to hide it. And while her tongue was still sharp—for she was fluent in sarcasm and wit—her touch had become gentler. More careful. Like she was afraid of hurting him. At first, Fenton had worried that she felt guilty; after all, it was the organization she had been trying to leave that kidnapped and hurt him. And then, at some point when they were alone, M’ma had told him about what Elise had asked Gandra to do in the back of the Thunderquack, to use her own bioelectricity to destroy the nanites that were attached to Fenton’s skin. He had been so certain then that it was misplaced guilt.

Except… he also noticed the same behavior in his mom. And his friends: Drake and Launchpad and the kids. Even Gyro seemed to be tiptoeing around him, especially since Fenton had been allowed to return to the lab a week and a half prior. Treating him with kid gloves almost. Watching him carefully. On edge, as if they were ready to jump if he were to fall.

They were all afraid to break him, Fenton had realized. Or break him further.

But he wasn’t broken. How could he be broken? He had survived. He was fully healed, hardly a trace of damage remained. Only a handful of small scars that were covered by soft, downy feathers that were quickly filling in.

Actually ready or not, he had to become Gizmoduck again. So that people could stop worrying about him. He couldn’t stand it for much longer.

Fenton twisted his arms so that he could remove Gandra’s hands from his arms, taking her hands in his, swinging their arms slightly as he told her, “Elise says I’m fully recovered, and I have her full permission to become Gizmoduck again.”

Gandra grinned and hugged him, holding him tight before releasing him. “That’s great!”

“Elise cleared him?” Gyro called down from where he was working on his own project. “Good, about time. Come on, we have work to do. Elise had her turn, but Gizmoduck isn’t officially back until I’ve run _my_ tests! Chop chop, people! Move it!”

Fenton took a deep breath, steeling himself as he and Gandra walked over to where the new and improved Gizmoduck armor lay on a lab table. It always gave Fenton a jolt when he first saw it; not the armor itself, but the armor in the position it was in. It was like reliving those awful moments with F.O.W.L, but as an out-of-body experience.

Still, he hadn’t said anything. Told himself he was being stupid. Delusional. Fenton and Gyro had given updates to the armor like that many times before. This was just like those times. The times from before. He just had to pretend that everything was the same from before. He could do that. He was good at that. He’d gone a week and a half doing that already. And it had paid off, now hadn’t it? They were in the testing phases now…

While there had been many new hardware and software additions, they had agreed that the new armor would look exactly like the old one. Gyro had made some grumbles about that, having wanted to make some tweaks, but had kept his mouth shut once he was reminded that Gizmoduck would be returning to action after a mysterious three week absence; it was better to not give the people of Duckburg any more things to speculate about. Let them think that Gizmoduck took a vacation or something.

Hmm, actually, now that he thought about it, maybe Fenton had been a little too hasty to turn down Elise’s suggestion of going on vacation.

“Ready?” Gyro asked, picking up a clipboard, his voice almost bored. His eyes betrayed his eagerness, though. And his nervousness.

Fenton answered with action instead of words.

Well, that wasn’t true.

He answered with two words in particular.

“Blathering blatherskite.”

In that moment, magic and science blurred the line that separated the two into very different realms, enveloping Fenton in the Gizmoduck armor. He felt and heard each piece click together, effortlessly and seamlessly, into place. It felt the same, each piece having been meticulously weighed and measured—and on more than one occasion, completely redone when something failed to meet Dr. Gearloose’s incredibly precise specifications—so that the new armor was exactly like the old armor. At least, on the outside.

Inside, there were new and shiny gadgets, things that Fenton and Gandra and Gyro had planned and debated and sketched out and solved with equation after equation, trial after trial.

And Fenton was ready to put them through their paces. To get as used to this armor as possible.

To get back to normal.

Gizmoduck looked over at Gyro and said, “Ready.”

*****

The party was in full swing and a major hit. Scrooge and Zan’s welcome speech/declaration of intent to run for office speech had gone off without a hitch, the caterers were seamlessly replacing empty platters with full ones, the music was lively, the mood entirely celebratory. Everyone was having a good time.

Webby wandered around the room, looking for signs of anything amiss—a decoration off center, watery ice in the punch bowl, a fashion emergency—but was pleased to find nothing wrong.

“Hey,” Gosalyn said, running up behind her and grabbing hold of Webby’s sleeve. “Uncle Scrooge says we can be off duty now, and Huey went to grab some games to play, and your Granny gave us a big thing of snacks.”

Webby smiled. “Sounds great! I just want to do one more round and I’ll be up!”

“One more round? Seriously? Everything’s going great!” Gosalyn said, spreading her arms.

“I know, I know,” Webby said. “But I just want to be sure—”

“Excuse me, miss?”

Both girls turned to see a white female duck with wavy red hair and dressed in a tight purple dress and draped with a pale blue feather boa approach, dabbing a handkerchief at her eyes, mascara running down her face.

“Mr. McDuck mentioned that if anything were to go wrong tonight, you’d be the one to fix it, miss,” The woman said, sniffling.

“What’s wrong and how can I help?” Webby said, straightening up. “You can count on Webby Vanderquack to make things right!”

“And Gosalyn Mallard,” Gosalyn added, slinging her arm around Webby’s shoulders. “What happened?”

“It’s just,” The woman hiccupped. “I lost my bracelet. It’s very special to me, and incredibly valuable. It was my grandmother’s. Oh, I knew that clasp looked weak…”

“We’ll find your bracelet, ma’am,” Webby said. “Just tell us what it looks like.”

The woman described the bracelet, sniffling and hiccupping the entire time. Webby patted her compassionately on the arm as she burst into a sob in her hands.

“Don’t worry, we’ll find it,” Gosalyn assured her. “How about you go sit down somewhere, maybe get something to drink?”

“Well,” The woman said, wiping some of the running mascara off her cheek with a frown at the black smear on the white cloth. “I should go get cleaned up…”

Webby hesitated, then said, “You can use the bathroom upstairs. Third floor, fifth door on the right. It’s small, and a bit disorganized, but it’ll give you some privacy.”

“Oh, thank you, miss, you are a doll,” The woman said, going up the stairs as Webby indicated. “Thank you ever so much.”

Gosalyn frowned and whispered to Webby, “I thought no one was allowed on the third floor, since that’s where everyone’s bedrooms are.”

“Yeah, but I felt bad for her,” Webby admitted. “She’d hold up the line at the other bathrooms. It’ll be fine. What’s the worst that can happen? Now, come on, we’ve got a bracelet to find!”

They immediately started searching, looking around on the floors to the best of their abilities, but it was hard with so many people.

“Maybe we should recruit some help,” Gosalyn said, swiping a cream puff off the table as they passed. “I can go get the others.”

Webby’s eyes widened. “That’s a great idea, but I’ve got an idea on how to get even more help!”

She went up to the top of the stairs and cleared her throat before saying, “Attention everyone! We are looking for a misplaced bracelet. Gold, with three white diamonds, most likely with a broken clasp. Please be on the lookout for this bracelet, and if you see anything, please speak up!”

And people began to speak up, but not in the way Webby intended.

“My necklace! It’s gone!”

“My gold cufflinks!”

“My engagement ring!”

“My wallet!”

“My sapphire earrings!”

“MY PHONE!!! NOOOOOO!!!”

All throughout the party, guests were making exclamations over missing jewelry, those who weren’t missing anything starting to whisper to each other.

Webby’s eyes widened with horror, and she looked over at Uncle Scrooge, who was frowning as he realized the same thing.

There was a thief among them.

*****

She was a patient woman. Very, very patient. Mostly because she knew how to busy herself as she waited.

She wiped away the fake tears and carefully ruined make-up. She changed dresses, changed shoes, took off the wig, sorted through the bag she had hid earlier that day—who would have guessed that sweet little Webby, trained and raised by the one and only Agent Twenty-Two, would have unknowingly helped her complete her mission?

Seriously. That child was too nice for her own good.

She was reapplying her lipstick when she heard the sound of footsteps rushing down the hall, the squeak of a door opening, a muffled voice shouting, “Guys, come quick! There’s trouble!”

The woman smiled at her reflection.

When there was trouble, you called DW.

Yes, everything was going even better than she planned.

*****

“So you said that you and Darkwing meet on this rooftop sometimes for coffee?” Gandra asked as she started unpacking the sandwiches from her backpack.

“Yeah,” Fenton said, setting down the bag with the Gizmoduck armor, trying hard to ignore the twinges of pain in his back and to not to sound out of breath. He was disappointed how, in just three weeks, he had lost so much of the upper-body strength he had gained from constantly lugging the armor around. He had nearly toppled sideways when he first picked up the bag, and Gandra and Gyro kindly refrained from saying anything about that. Well, they perhaps thought it was kind. Fenton didn’t. Why did he _want_ to be insulted? “Usually at the beginning of Darkwing’s shift. M’ma says it’s not a proper shift change if there’s no coffee involved.”

“Henceforth, tonight is sandwiches,” Gandra said, waving one wax-paper wrapped bundle slightly.

“And thank you for that.”

Fenton and Gandra turned to see Darkwing and Launchpad climb up the fire escape.

“We are starving,” Darkwing continued, accepting a sandwich from Gandra. He immediately unwrapped it and took a huge bite with a contented hum.

“Missed lunch break because of a car thief,” Launchpad said, also quick to get the sandwich in his mouth.

“It was a very long car chase,” Darkwing said through a mouthful.

“They’re not as exciting as they sound,” Launchpad added, sounding thoroughly disappointed. “Kinda boring. And we missed two-for-one taco night for that…”

“I pity the guy once you got ahold of him,” Fenton said. “Hangry superheroes are scary.”

“Speaking of superheroes,” Darkwing said, glancing beside Fenton. “Is that what I think it is?”

“If you think it’s the new and improved Gizmoduck armor, then yes.” Fenton said.

“Elise cleared you?” Launchpad said, his eyes brightening. “That’s great, buddy!”

“Welcome back, Gizmoduck,” Darkwing said. “Good to have you back.”

“It’s good to be back,” Fenton said. “So, did you find any more leads about Negaduck and Morgana?”

“Yeah, you brought Lena out to that old creepy lighthouse where you found Megavolt,” Gandra said, nodding. “Said that there were traces of Morgana’s magic?”

Darkwing’s expression darkened. “Yeah, Morgana aided Megavolt’s escape. We thought it would be back to their hideout, but Lena could only detect the magic as far as outside the lighthouse, right by where we parked the Thunderquack.”

“Did find tire tracks there, though,” Launchpad commented as he opened a bag of chips.

“That cut off as soon as they got on the main road and onto asphalt,” Darkwing said. “We’ve got a general direction of which way they went, but that only got us so far. Plus, we don’t have a clue what the vehicle looks like.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for any suspicious looking vehicles,” Fenton said. “Though honestly, when it comes to Negaduck and Morgana, who knows what that could possibly mean?”

“They could be using rentals, and using fake IDs to get them,” Gandra suggested. “Or stealing cars.”

“Or stealing a car and returning it before the owner knows its missing, so it never gets reported as stolen,” Fenton added. “I’d assume that Morgana’s magic could find a way to break into and hotwire a car without any signs of forced entry.”

“Morgana’s magic is ultimately the problem,” Darkwing said. “It’s too unpredictable. We don’t know what she can and can’t do.”

“Well, at least we know one thing,” Launchpad said. “And a good thing, because that thing is that Morgana and Negaduck aren’t hurting people to power the Blood Ruby like that Tyrant King who originally owned it.”

“They’re not hurting people that we know of,” Darkwing corrected.

“What’s that cryptic statement supposed to mean?” Gandra asked.

“I mean, we don’t know if they’re going to nearby towns to get blood for the Ruby,” Darkwing said. “Or if they’re taking advantage of people who wouldn’t necessarily want go to the police or hospitals for help, like a good portion of the homeless population. Or finding a passed out college kid who would just assume that they must have gotten that cut sometime at the party the night before when they were black-out drunk.”

“But you think that Morgana is getting more power for that Ruby one way or another,” Fenton said.

“Absolutely,” Darkwing said with a nod. Suddenly, his phone rang and he pulled it out of his jacket. He frowned at the caller ID. “It’s Mr. McDuck.” He said before swiping to answer the call. “Hello?” Darkwing listened for a few moments, then stood up, saying, “Pilot and I are—wait, hold on.” He put his hand over the receiver and looked over at Fenton. “There’s trouble at the mansion. You ready to start your first shift back early?”

Fenton crumpled up his sandwich wrapper and stood up. “Tell Mr. McDuck that Gizmoduck is on his way, too.”

*****

Darkwing Duck turned off the engine of the Ratcatcher, jumping off his bike as Gizmoduck touched down on the gravel driveway beside him, carefully lowering Gandra to the ground in front of him. There were so many cars in the driveway—police as well as personal vehicles, which gave neither hero any idea of what they would face inside.

“What did Mr. McD say was going on?” Pilot asked, tossing his helmet into the sidecar.

“He didn’t, just that it was urgent,” Darkwing said, putting on his hat and heading up to the front steps.

“I’m going in the back way,” Gandra said, gesturing to towards the back of the house, where she could enter through the kitchen. “Violet said she’d let me in. I’ll catch up with you inside.”

The front door was opened by Duckworth, who—as usual—didn’t look at all perturbed by anything. Being a ghost butler and all.

“Ah, good, Mr. McDuck is expecting your arrival,” Duckworth declared, allowing the two heroes to enter.

What they saw was surprising. The foyer was full of people, some cops along with men and women dressed in fancy clothing. They caught sight of Captain Sabrewing and Detective Cabrera along with the rest of their squad’s detectives and officers—Storkules, Penumbra, Andy, Charles, and Melissa. All of the police were interviewing people, taking notes. Storkules was attempting to comfort a sobbing woman. The people who were not being interviewed were in groups, whispering with wide eyes.

They both caught a glance at Elise, who had her arm around the shoulders of Zan, the two of them wearing serious expressions as they talked with a man. Elise saw them and gave them a small smile and wave, her eyes saying that she had to stay put with Zan.

“Hey, isn’t that Mark Beaks over there?” Pilot asked Gizmoduck perhaps a little too loudly.

“Yep,” Gizmoduck confirmed, voice as blank as his face as he wheeled past Beaks, who was, in fact, in the corner, in a fetal position, sobbing into his hands.

“Mr. McDuck,” Duckworth called over the noise. “Misters Gizmoduck, Darkwing Duck, and Pilot have arrived.

“Perfect,” Scrooge McDuck declared from the landing on the stairs. “Just the men I need! Now get up here, on the double!”

Scrooge waved his cane in the direction that he should be followed and the two heroes and one superhero partner rushed to catch up with the old Scottish duck.

“Mr. McD, what happened?” Pilot asked as they went down a hall.

Scrooge shook his head. “We’ve had a bit of a situation. As you know, tonight, I was hosting this little soiree so that Ms. Owlson could formally announce her intention to run for Mayor of Duckburg. About an hour ago, one of the guests approached Webby about a missing bracelet. Well, Webby made an announcement, asking for everyone to keep their eyes peeled for this bracelet. However, it set off a ripple effect, with many guests realizing that their valuables had been lifted. Wallets, jewelry of all sorts, and quite a few brand new Waddle phones.”

“Let me guess,” Gizmoduck said. “All from Mark Beaks.”

“Yes, the lad is a bit distressed about all of his back-up phones having been lifted from his person,” Scrooge confirmed.

From behind them, they heard a devastated voice call, “WHY, CRUEL WORLD, WHY MUST YOU TAKE MY BABIES????”

“Aye, a bit distressed,” Scrooge repeated with a raised brow and dry voice.

“Are all the guests still here?” Darkwing asked.

“Yes,” Scrooge confirmed. “At least, all the invited ones.”

“You think someone slipped through?” Darkwing asked.

“Donald and Duckworth were both checking invitations at the door,” Scrooge said. “Nothing funny with the invitations, no one looking suspicious. Della, Zan and I greeted all the guests, too. Beakley was in the kitchen most of the evening with the kids and the caterers—no one got in through the back door. I’m ashamed to say it wouldn’t be the first time a would-be thief or other ne’er-do-well got in through an upstairs window.”

“Uh, Mr. McDuck?” Gizmoduck said as Scrooge opened the hidden panel to the room with the security cameras.

“Yes?” Scrooge prompted.

“Well, sir, it, uh, you don’t sound too particularly… upset. About this,” Gizmoduck explained.

“I’m not,” Scrooge admitted.

“You do know that sounds a bit fishy, right, Uncle Scrooge?” Huey said from where he stood beside the bank of computer screens. They were greeted with waves from the manor kids, Lena, Violet, Gosalyn, Gandra, Donald, Della, and Mrs. Beakley.

“I’m not upset,” Scrooge said. “Not when I already know who did it. This reeks of Goldie O’Gilt’s handiwork.”

“Except it’s not,” Louie said, spinning around in the chair, which he was slouched in and tapping on his phone.

“How do you know?” Darkwing asked, rolling the chair to the side so that he and Gizmoduck could get to the screens.

“Because she’s in Botswana at this very moment,” Louie explained, not looking at all perturbed at being moved. He showed his phone to Darkwing and Gizmoduck, which displayed a picture of an older female duck with graying golden blond hair, arching an eyebrow at the camera and holding up a newspaper with the next day’s date on it. “Photo’s timestamped only a couple minutes ago. And it’s sunrise where she is, which you can see in the photo. Therefore, Aunt Goldie didn’t do it. This time, at least.”

“Wha— _Aunt_ Goldie?” Scrooge exclaimed, using his cane to turn the chair around. He put his hands on his hips and narrowed his eyes at his youngest great-nephew. “You still associate with that she-demon?”

“Yeah,” Louie said, still tapping on his phone. “We send each other memes, she sends me selfies of her with her latest con haul, and I explain slang to her. It’s great.”

“Didn’t she con you?” Scrooge demanded.

“Yeah, and?” Louie prompted, looking up for the first time. “That’s her thing. You should know, she does it to you, like, all the time.”

“Well, that’s different,” Scrooge huffed, folding his arms over his chest.

Louie smirked. “You’re just jealous that she likes me more than she likes you.”

This seemed to ruffle Scrooge’s feathers as he snapped, “She does _not_ like you more!”

“Oh yeah?” Louie said. “Wanna bet?”

With that, he reached into the pocket of his hoodie and pulled out a brightly decorated card. He handed it to Scrooge with a smug, “She sent me this a couple months ago.”

Scrooge’s eyes widened as he looked at the card in his hands. “SHE SENT YOU A BIRTHDAY CARD! She never sent _me_ a birthday card!”

“Mr. McDuck,” Mrs. Beakley said sharply as she looked over her shoulder. “You do not like to celebrate your birthday.”

“What’s yer point?” Scrooge growled at her, shoving the card back at Louie.

“The point,” Mrs. Beakley said. “Is that not only has Ms. O’Gilt provided proof that she is on the other side of the world, there is no way that she would have escaped your notice tonight.”

“She could have been wearing a disguise, the photos could be fixed,” Scrooge argued.

“Goldie’s preferred method is to rob you blind while looking you in the eye,” Della pointed out.

“Yeah, remember that time in Birdbados?” Donald added with a nod.

“I thought we agreed to not talk about Birdbados, nephew,” Scrooge grumbled, side-eyeing Donald hard. “But _fine_. I _guess_ we can look for other suspects.”

Gizmoduck glanced at the computer screen on his gauntlet, which was attached to the computer.

“Well, the facial recognition system is nearly done comparing the footage to the guest list,” He said. “So far everyone is a match at eighty percent.”

“But what if the thief’s face isn’t on camera?” Webby suggested. “Remember when Negaduck was making everyone in town think he was Darkwing? He kept his face hidden from sight in most of the footage.”

“Fair point,” Darkwing said. “I’ll go ask the detectives if I can go ahead and look at the interviews they’ve already finished.”

Before he could make a move, there was a loud, resounding boom as the computer screens went dark and the lights went out. There was the sound of crackling electricity and Gizmoduck was thrown across the room, Donald grabbing Violet and Dewey by the collars of their shirts to drag them out of the way. With a grunt, Gizmoduck hit the wall.

“Are you okay?” Huey asked, rushing over to Gizmoduck as Pilot and Gandra knelt to his side.

“Getting _really_ tired of being shocked,” Gizmoduck said a bit sharply as he got back up. “A blackout shouldn’t have made that happen.”

“So what did just happen, if it’s not a blackout?” Dewey asked.

Suddenly, the screens flickered back to life, red with a black logo displaying four letters.

F.O.W.L.

“No,” Mrs. Beakley whispered, her eyes wide.

“Not in my house!” Scrooge declared as he rushed from the room, Mrs. Beakley and Webby behind him.

“Oh, boy, F.O.W.L!” Webby called out.

“Webby, that is way more enthusiasm than the situation calls for!” Lena called after her as everyone ran out of the security room and towards the foyer.

Everything was pitch black and there was a great deal of screaming, shouts about toes getting stepped on, and general panic.

“Should we move the civilians outside?” Darkwing asked Gizmoduck in the din.

“One of those civilians may be the F.O.W.L agent,” Gizmoduck pointed out, activating some lights, sweeping them around the room. They were bright, but not enough to illuminate everything and everyone. “We could—”

Suddenly, a light flashed on, directing everyone’s attention to the middle of the stairs.

“Where the heck did that spotlight come from?” Gosalyn asked.

“Hey, that’s my spotlight!” Dewey exclaimed.

“Ugh, Dewey, you don’t always get to be the center of attention!” Louie groaned.

“No, I mean, that’s literally my spotlight from my Dewey Dew-Night set-up!” Dewey explained.

Darkwing rushed up to the stairs. “There’s got to be a reason it’s shining on—”

More screams erupted as suddenly Darkwing was enveloped in smoke. Not his typical purple smoke, however.

Deep, dark, blood red smoke.

Darkwing coughed, trying to clear the area. He blinked, realizing he was in darkness again, the spotlight having been shut off. “What the—?”

“Just as I thought. Your victory during our last encounter was a one-time fluke, Darkwing Duck.”

The female voice echoed around the room.

Darkwing felt his blood run cold.

He knew one thing for sure.

That was not Goldie O’Gilt.

The spotlight turned on with a flicking sound, and several people gasped or screamed at seeing the white female duck, clothed in a sparkling red ballgown and bedecked in a wide array of jewelry, standing in one of the stair’s alcoves, leaning against the wood lazily, a wicked gleam in her eye.

She raised a hand, swinging a diamond necklace around a finger as she said, “Great party you’ve got going here. I’m almost sorry to put an end to it.”

“Femme Fatale,” Mrs. Beakley gasped, her face filled with horror.

Femme Fatale smiled, her eyes glinting wickedly. “Lovely to see you again, Twenty-Two.”

And that was when the bombs went off.

*****

All hell, of course, broke loose then.

There was screaming and a mad dash for the door, Captain Sabrewing barking orders at three of his detectives to get the party guests out. But even as the large crowd began to flee his house in terror, there was a gleam in Scrooge McDuck’s eye as he prepared to stand his ground.

“So F.O.W.L finally decided to start the next battle of this little war game, eh?” Scrooge said, spinning his cane in his hand, prepared to use it as a weapon. “Where are the rest of your feckless fiendish friends, Femme Fatale?”

Femme Fatale grinned. “Oh, Scroogey, darling, are we really going to do this? Your whole little spiel?” She dropped into a fake Scottish accent and made an exaggerated arm motion as she said, “ ‘Bless me bagpipes, I’m Scrooge McDuck and I can do anything because my family is the greatest strength blah blah blah’. Do you really think the power of friendship is going to save you this time?”

“Look around you,” Scrooge said, gesturing to the people who surrounded him, all ready to fight, to include two superheroes, a superhero partner, an ex-S.H.U.S.H agent, an ex-F.O.W.L agent, a teenage sorceress, a Webby (who needed her own classification), and four cops (one of which was a Greek deity with biceps the size of watermelons, another being the highest ranking Moonlander on Earth who was always ready to fight anything that moved, a police captain with plenty of experience in tackling strange and unusual situations that surrounded the city he swore to protect, and Rosa Cabrera, who also needed her own classification), along with Donald, Della, Violet, Gosalyn, Huey, Dewey and Louie—each of whom had their own strengths and skills to be useful in a fight. “Unless you’ve got an army hiding somewhere, you’re grossly outnumbered.”

Femme Fatale laughed. “Oh, I know I’m outnumbered. But I do my best work alone. Remember that at the end of the night, Scroogey.”

There was a snapping sound and then suddenly three yells of surprise and terror as a rope snatched up Huey, Dewey, and Louie around the waists, hoisting them into the air as the chandelier descended, spikes coming down to form a cage around Lena, Gosalyn, and Violet, Webby just barely getting out of the way in time.

“Kids!” Donald yelled, instantly rushing over towards the trapped children, Della behind him. However, neither got very far because—out of sight, unknown to them—Femme Fatale pressed a button.

Several things happened at once.

Della’s metal foot stuck to the floor, sending her tumbling forward, Donald screeching to a halt to turn back towards his sister, only for his eyes to widen and let out a ‘Waak!’ as he jumped on Della, pinning her to the ground as she tried to get up. And just in the nick of time, too, because Gizmoduck—along with all of the weapons belonging to the cops—flew towards the wall.

Gizmoduck heard the sound of shattering pottery before the thunk of his armor hitting the wall. Despite his best efforts, he was pinned there, unable to pull away from the magnetic pull that kept him in place.

_Don’t panic,_ he told himself. _Do not panic…_

That was easier said than done, though, because he watched as a weighted net—formerly an earring that Femme Fatale was wearing—dropped down on Rosa, Raymond and Launchpad, sending them to the ground and trying to fight off the net, getting more tangled than free.

Darkwing almost missed Webby trying to get his attention—anyone’s attention—from the alcove on the other side of the staircase, which certainly had to be a blind spot for Femme Fatale. Darkwing didn’t know what the girl had planned, but if she needed help, he’d give it.

Darkwing dropped a smoke bomb and disappeared.

Lena, from inside the cage, summoned a ball of magic, her focus intense. “Hang on, I’ll get us out of here,” She assured her sister and friend, sending the ball of magic towards the spikes of their cage.

Only for her to suddenly stumble backwards, clutching her chest as she crumpled to the floor.

“Lena!” Violet and Gosalyn exclaimed, rushing to her side.

“Something’s making the magic backfire on me,” Lena mumbled from where Violet cradled her in her arms.

Gandra had thrown aside her gloves the moment she had laid eyes on Femme Fatale, electricity crackling between her fingers. But now, after seeing her boyfriend fly into a wall against his will and her pseudo-sisters trapped, she had built up plenty of intensity in her attack.

She shot the electricity out in Femme Fatale’s direction, but Femme Fatale merely spun and dropped down to the floor, out of the way. She plucked a pearl off of a barrette in her hair and threw it at Gandra, the pearl expanding and heading towards Gandra’s face. Instinctively, Gandra put her hands up, the pearl hitting her hands and coating them in a sticky substance, one she recognized instantly.

“What is this? Rubber?” Gandra demanded, stunned and outraged. Whatever it was, it wasn’t conductive to electricity, and she was unable to get even the smallest of shocks through

“Black Heron sends her love, Dee,” Femme Fatale said, wiggling her fingers in a small wave. “Who’s next? Come on, I could do this all night long…” She smirked in Storkules’ direction, saying flirtatiously, “How about you, big fella? Think you can handle me?”

“Verily, it would besmirch my honor to lay hands upon a lady,” Storkules declared, his face angry. “However, I feel vindicated in my actions by yours, Femme Fatale of F.O.W.L!”

With that, he charged forward, his fist raised towards her. Femme Fatale didn’t even move, only reaching up to touch her necklace.

Then, when Storkules was close enough, Femme Fatale tugged on the necklace, the strand of pearls coming loose and extending into a lasso, wrapping around Storkules, sending him crashing into Penumbra, who had been trying to come up Femme Fatale from the side while her focus was supposedly on Storkule. The pearls wrapping around the Moonlander as well, tying Storkules and Penumbra together. They collided with Donald and Della, the former having helped the latter remove her prosthetic, and mistakenly thinking it was safe to get up.

Femme Fatale merely smirked before dodging a swipe from Mrs. Beakley, effortlessly ducking and dodging, not making any defensive or offensive movements, not even when Scrooge joined the fray. She didn’t even seem phased by the double-sided attack, and in fact seemed amused.

“Losing your touch, Twenty-Two,” Femme Fatale taunted. “Must be the age. The years haven’t been treating you well, have they? Oh how I just adore the fact that the great and mighty, pride of S.H.U.S.H, Agent Twenty-Two has been reduced to serving tea and crumpets to a doddering old fool and playing sweet, doting Granny. I can’t help but wonder what your former agents would think if they saw you now. Ludwig von Drake. Derek Blunt.” Her eyes gleamed wickedly. “Agent One-Twenty-Two.”

Bentina Beakley faltered for a half a second, but it was half a second too long before Agent Twenty-Two took over again.

And Agent Twenty-Two was furious.

“Beakley, don’t—!” Scrooge warned, seeing what she was about to do.

But it was too late. Mrs. Beakley lunged forward...

And missed Femme Fatale, stepping daintily out of the way, but not without sweeping out her leg and catching Mrs. Beakley at the ankle, sending her crashing to the ground. Before Mrs. Beakley could get back on her feet or Scrooge could take a swipe at her, she back flipped away.

There was a glint of gold in the air—a ring Femme Fatale had tossed—and then a golden dome surrounded Mrs. Beakley and Scrooge, the latter immediately trying to break the barrier with his cane.

“What? I thought you’d appreciate it, Scroogey,” Femme Fatale said with a shrug. “Surrounded entirely by gold, isn’t that your life’s goal?”

Now, speaking of life goals, where was...

“I am the terror that flaps in the night!”

Ah. There was the egomaniac in question. Giving his position away entirely by smoke bombs.

Or, at least, that was what he wanted her to think.

“I am the spider web you can’t see in the dark.”

“Yes, yes, you’re Darkwing Duck.” Femme Fatale said dryly. “And you’re going to have to do more to impress me than a little bit of smoke and mirrors.”

With that, she spun around, catching Darkwing off balance when she kicked him across the face.

Blinking stars out of his eyes, Darkwing murmured, “I’ve heard that high heels are murder, but never heard of ‘em used as a murder weapon.”

Femme Fatale’s eyes gleamed wickedly as she said, “Good. If you heard about high heels used as a murder weapon, means I got sloppy on the job.”

“Hi-ya!”

Webby dropped from the ceiling onto Femme Fatale, wrapping her legs around the woman’s neck. Not to be deterred, Femme Fatale reached up, grabbed Webby, and threw her across the room.

_No,_ Femme Fatale thought as she released Webby and briefly watched her fly. _That was too easy. So what does..._

“Suck gas, evil—!”

The words cut off as she spun around and grabbed Darkwing Duck by the wrist, twisting him and putting her foot on his back.

The gas gun was right in her face, but he didn’t pull the trigger.

Perfect. Darkwing had played into her hands perfectly, and he didn’t even know it.

She squeezed Darkwing’s wrist just right and with the perfect amount of pressure to make him release his grip on the gas gun. He practically handed it right to her.

Darkwing began to sputter, voice full of outrage. “Hey, what are you doing? Give that back!”

“You want it, come and take it,” Femme Fatale said, reaching behind her to tuck the gas gun into the back of her dress, between her shoulder blades. She had what she wanted, but she wasn’t against toying with the caped fool for a little while longer.

Snarling, Darkwing lunged at her, punching and kicking as Femme Fatale dodged and weaved. Femme Fatale crossed her arms out in front of her, blocking Darkwing’s kick.

“Better luck next time,” Femme Fatale taunted, twisting her arm so that she grabbed Darkwing’s ankle, throwing him off balance and unable to get a good swing at her. “I really can’t wait to see what your bosses at S.H.U.S.H give you as a replacement—that’ll also be fun to take from you.”

Frustrated, Darkwing started to say, “But I don’t even work for—” as Femme Fatale quickly swiped out with her foot to catch Darkwing behind the knee, sending him crashing to the ground with a wheeze of “S.H.U.S.H.”

Femme Fatale frowned over him even as she grabbed her other earring, shaking it into a second weighted net to toss over Darkwing. “You don’t work for S.H.U.S.H? But then how—”

Then her eyes widened and she glanced across the room at Mrs. Beakley, still struggling to get out of the golden dome. Then a smile crept across Femme Fatale’s face.

“Oh, Twenty-Two,” She chuckled darkly. “I never took you for a sentimental fool. The first and only time you break S.H.U.S.H protocol, and all for what? A memento? Did having it really make you feel better? Or was it a reminder of how you—”

Femme Fatale cut herself off as a small webbed foot came after her. She clearly wasn’t expecting it, but somehow managed to dodge it, ducking and spinning away.

Femme Fatale turned to look at the perpetrator, Webby standing in a fighting stance.

She was the last of them still standing.

And she wasn’t going down without a fight.

“Webby!” Mrs. Beakley called, panic in her voice. “Webby, no! Do not engage!”

“You should listen to your granny, little one,” Femme Fatale said mockingly. “Be a good girl now, and perhaps you can get a cookie before bed.”

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take,” Webby declared. She grinned. “Unless you’re too scared to fight me, Femme Fatale.”

Femme Fatale drew herself up some, her eyes dancing.

“On the contrary, my dear Webbigail,” Femme Fatale said. “It’d be nice to have fought at least one worthy opponent tonight, you charming little wild card.”

Webby’s grin grew.

And she attacked.

For the first time since revealing herself, Femme Fatale immediately went on the offensive, not the defensive, attacking Webby with as much vigor and eagerness. It was clear to all that, despite the large age and height gap between the two, they were equals in terms of being fighters.

“Your grandmother certainly taught you well, little Webbigail,” Femme Fatale said, her voice loud and carrying and steady even as she and Webby continued to duel, fists and feet flying, dodging and weaving each other. At first it didn’t seem like either were actually gaining any ground until, finally, Femme Fatale reached out, grabbing Webby by the shirt, seemingly having gained the higher ground. “But you’ll never be on her level. Or mine, for that matter.”

Webby, however, disagreed, her eyes flashing dangerously as she smirked.

“Granny _did_ teach me well,” Webby said proudly. “Which is why I can do this!”

Femme Fatale’s eyes momentarily widened as Webby swung one leg up and over, crashing her heel down on the top of Femme Fatale’s beak. With her other leg, Webby pushed at Femme Fatale’s chest, the combination forcing Femme Fatale to drop her.

Femme Fatale stumbled backwards, a hand to her beak, blood dripping from her face, looking dazed. She lowered her hand and saw the blood there, then looked back up at Webby, who was clearly ready to continue the fight, her eyes intense.

And Femme Fatale smirked at her.

“Hmm, perhaps I was mistaken,” Femme Fatale said airily. “It seems, Webbigail, that, despite all of Twenty-Two’s best efforts, _you fight like your mother_.”

Webby’s eyes went wide, her mouth opening slightly, her muscles slack.

“My…” She whispered.

The distraction was enough for Femme Fatale to whip out the gas gun, shooting out the grappling hook through a window, where a black helicopter with the F.O.W.L logo waited for her.

“Toodles!” Femme Fatale called, blowing a kiss to the room full of defeated heroes and adventurers. Then she retracted the cable, swinging out of the window and disappearing into the night.

The mansion’s foyer was quiet without the sounds of battle, only the sound of sirens outside and the blades of the helicopter keeping things from being absolutely silent.

Allowing Donald to help her up and slinging an arm over her brother’s shoulder, Della groaned and said, “Well, I think I speak for everyone when I say that that was thoroughly and utterly humiliating.”

“Not. The. Time. Lass.” Scrooge growled. “Not. The. Time.”


	2. Chapter 2

“She stole my gas gun!” Darkwing exclaimed.

Fenton rolled his eyes, and shot a glare over his shoulder. “Yes, Drake. She did. We were there. We all saw.” Fenton turned back to the Gizmoduck armor, still magnetized to the wall. He tapped his foot almost impatiently before saying, “Blathering blatherskite.” The armor moved as if it wanted to go towards its master, but instead it remained stuck to the wall. Fenton huffed and ran a hand through his hair in agitation. “Great. Just great.”

“Hey, at least you are still able to move around on your own,” Della called from a couch, where she was being sat on by Louie and Dewey. The boys had been plopped onto her lap by Donald after about the third time of Della trying to hop around the room and help. Her prosthetic leg was still stuck to the floor by whatever magnetized it there.

In the immediate aftermath of Femme Fatale’s departure, Webby had rushed to free people. She started with freeing Storkules, Penumbra, Launchpad, Rosa and Raymond so that they could work together to lift up the cage off of Gosalyn, Violet and Lena, while Donald freed the boys. It was about at that point that Elise had slipped back inside, figuring that it was safe to do so, and was immediately called over to tend to Lena, who now was curled up on the floor against Raymond, sipping water and wrapped in a blanket.

“Feeling any better, Lena?” Elise asked, feeling the girl’s forehead for a temperature.

Lena nodded slightly. “Yeah. Whatever was in that cage messed me up, but the farther I’m away from it, the better it is.”

Meanwhile, Violet, Huey, and Gosalyn were attempting to help Gandra get the gunk off her hands, and were mostly successful (thanks in large part to Huey’s JWG) with a few tablecloths, water, a bottle of rubbing alcohol they had found in a first aid kit, and plenty of colorful language coming from Gandra’s mouth directed at the gunk, Black Heron, Femme Fatale, Black Heron, F.O.W.L, Black Heron… Her words were mostly aimed at Black Heron.

“She stole. My gas gun.” Darkwing said again, pacing about the room. “Why the heck did she steal my gas gun?”

Rosa came down the stairs then, Penumbra behind her, each holding a bag. Penumbra’s was larger than Rosa’s small cloth one, which she lifted slightly as she said, “You were right, Webby. I can’t be sure without the list, but I think this is everything from the list of stolen items.” Rosa frowned slightly as she studied the pink-wearing duckling, who—after freeing her friends to the best of her abilities—had seated herself in an armchair, her hands in her lap, staring at them. “How did you know that’s where the loot would be?”

“Femme Fatale must have been the lady who came to us about the lost bracelet at the start,” Gosalyn pipped up. “Though it had to have been a disguise, because her hair was red and she was wearing a purple dress then. And we, uh, we sent her up there. Not knowing who she was. Or that she had stolen all that stuff. Obviously.”

The front door burst open and in rushed Kevin Sabrewing, Daisy Duck, and Gyro Gearloose. Kevin looked frantically between his family members, and seemed to make a split-second decision to rush to Lena and Raymond, kneeling down at her side.

Gyro, however, went directly to the gold dome that still trapped Scrooge—who was seething with rage—and Mrs. Beakley.

“Interesting material,” Gyro said, clearly impressed as he tapped a finger to the dome. “It’s not glass or plastic, and seems to be allowing oxygen to get through. Is it creating a greenhouse effect, though? And it had to have been flexible and self-expanding. What chemical reaction could have caused that? Hmm, I’d love to know the exact properties of this, and reverse engineer it. The possibilities—”

“Gyro,” Scrooge said through gritted teeth. “Ye can reverse engineer it to your hearts’ content, but if ye don’t get me out of here _immediately_ , yer gonna be doing it in your brand new lab—IN SIBERIA!”

Gyro flinched slightly, then shivered as if just thinking about the snow there before dropping down to one knee and going through the tools he had brought. “Right. Of course, Mr. McDuck. On it, Mr. McDuck. Have you out in a jiffy, Mr. McDuck.”

“What the heck happened here?” Daisy asked, looking around the foyer her hands spread out as she walked over to Donald, who smiled slightly upon seeing her and kissed her cheek in greeting. Daisy quickly returned the greeting with a quick kiss on the beak, saying “Hello, darling. But, seriously. What happened here? I got called out to replace the reporter sent to cover the story of Zan announcing that she’s running for mayor, because apparently he declared that he’s going on vacation effective immediately and not sure when he is returning and I totally think that is code for looking for a job in a city that is less prone to explosions every week. But that’s beside the point. What happened? Is everyone alright?”

“She stole—” Darkwing started.

“Your gas gun, we know!” Came the chorused response from around the room.

“‘She’?” Daisy questioned. “Who is ‘she’?”

“Femme Fatale of the treacherous F.O.W.L,” Storkules answered grimly. “We are ashamed to say that we were bested in this meeting on the field of battle.”

Daisy nodded, her face blank as she pulled out her notebook and pen, starting to take notes. “Okay. Okay. So how many of them were there total? Rough estimate is fine.”

“Oh, we can do better than that. We can give you an exact number,” Louie said. He held up a single finger. “One.”

Daisy paused in her writing, blinking as she looked up. “I’m sorry, did you just say ‘one’?”

“Yep. One.” Louie said, nodding.

“I mean, technically two, if we count her getaway helicopter pilot,” Dewey said.

“Okay, that’s fair. Two. Femme Fatale, and her getaway helicopter pilot.” Louie amended. “Though she made it really clear that she did all the legwork. He was just there as her ride.”

Daisy closed her notebook and returned it to her pocket. “One person—this Femme Fatale… She did all this?” She spread her hands again and spun around slightly, taking in… this.

The ruined chandelier and its cage. Scorch marks on the walls and carpets. Broken glass. The golden dome. Della’s prosthetic on the floor, while the Gizmoduck armor and a small array of weapons were stuck to the wall. The mess of ropes and rhinestones and fake pearls that had crumbled to dust. The ever increasing pile of rags that were formerly a single tablecloth. The sharp smell of smoke and alcohol.

“It’s just as bad as it sounds,” Donald said with a sigh. “And looks.”

There was a thunk across the room as Gyro finally broke through the dome, allowing Scrooge and Mrs. Beakley to exit. Scrooge stomped across the room.

“That blasted belligerent blackguard!” Scrooge raged. “No one comes into my house and makes a fool of Scrooge McDuck! We will make F.O.W.L pay for this!”

“How exactly do we do that?” Penumbra asked.

“Yeah, what’s our next step?” Della asked. “Well, I guess in my case, it’s a hop, but you know.”

Louie got off his mother’s lap and said, “Our next step should probably be figure out what else Femme Fatale stole. We know she left all the jewelry and other stuff she took at the party, and that she took Darkwing’s gas gun, but this entire house is full of stuff that’d make a great trophy to return to F.O.W.L to show off that she robbed Uncle Scrooge.”

Scrooge groaned and rubbed his forehead. “Curse me kilts, I hadn’t even thought about that. F.O.W.L would love to get their hands on a lot of the more dangerous items in my collection.”

“If she took something from Uncle Scrooge, why bother take the gas gun?” Gosalyn asked, getting to her feet.

“Maybe it was just a spur of the moment thing?” Huey suggested. “She saw an opportunity and, well, literally took it.”

“No, Femme Fatale proved that tonight was incredibly well thought-out,” Violet said. “If anything, taking the gas gun was meant to be a red herring, so that we would focus on what we all saw was stolen instead of considering what her true target was. Just as the thefts during the party were a distraction from her real attack.”

“It was probably closer to retaliation,” Rosa said. “F.O.W.L wanting to humiliate McDuck and Darkwing after they humiliated F.O.W.L. Femme Fatale would take it as proof of her revenge on the organization’s behalf.”

“Femme Fatale most certainly came here tonight with an agenda, but her main objective was not to deliver us an embarrassing loss—that was just an added bonus for her and F.O.W.L.”

Everyone turned to look at Mrs. Beakley, who stood with her back to them at the foot of the stairs, looking out at the sky through the shattered glass on the window. She continued, “Femme Fatale came here for the gas gun, and she left with what she came for.”

Mrs. Beakley turned around, face full of anger, seriousness… and a twinge of fear. “Which it is why it is of the utmost importance that we retrieve it from F.O.W.L’s hands as soon as possible.”

The room was quiet for a moment, then questions started pouring in.

“Wait, how do you know she came here only for the gas gun?” Dewey asked.

“Yeah, what’s so important about it?” Louie asked.

“What do you think F.O.W.L is going to do with the gas gun?” Darkwing asked.

“How does Femme Fatale know my mom?”

This last question came softly from Webby, who looked up for the first time in a long while, staring at her grandmother, pleadingly.

The intensity in Mrs. Beakley’s face dropped immediately. She closed her eyes and sighed. “Webby…” Then she reopened her eyes, her entire demeanor having changed. “Femme Fatale has been after that gas gun for a very long time. So has S.H.U.S.H. Both were led to believe that it was destroyed.”

“Wait a second, back up,” Della said, holding up a hand. “You mean S.H.U.S.H doesn’t know about the gas gun? Like, at all?”

“Does this have something to do with what Femme Fatale said about you not following protocol, Mrs. Beakley?” Violet asked bluntly.

“You told me when you gave it to me in the first place that it was just some leftover weaponry from when you were an active S.H.U.S.H agent,” Darkwing added, frowning at the housekeeper.

“No, I specifically said it was leftover from my S.H.U.S.H days,” Mrs. Beakley corrected firmly. “I did not say that it had been mine, necessarily.”

“I’m very confused,” Darkwing said, rubbing his forehead. “It wasn’t yours, but it was S.H.U.S.H’s, and they don’t actually know it actually exists?”

Scrooge suddenly sucked in a gasp, looking at Mrs. Beakley, first looking incredulous, then sympathetic. “Ach, Twenty-Two, you didn’t…”

“I did what I had to do,” Mrs. Beakley said, addressing Scrooge entirely. “You know that.”

“Aye, but certainly there was—”

“There was no other way, and I don’t need your condescension or your pity right now, McDuck,” Mrs. Beakley snapped. “Right now, we need a plan to retrieve the gas gun as quickly as possible.”

“And what, precisely, will happen if we don’t?” Raymond asked, transferring Lena fully over to Kevin so that he could stand. “It is a short range weapon and, quite frankly, archaic compared to F.O.W.L currently does utilize, if Femme Fatale’s arsenal this evening is any indicator.”

“Not to mention, it’s not subtle in the slightest,” Rosa added. “Doesn’t seem F.O.W.L’s style, considering Femme Fatale hid most of her weapons in plain sight.”

“Yes, F.O.W.L does most of their work under the radar. They work quietly and without being noticed, but sometimes will be more bold and daring. They want their work to be seen. So long as another group will take the fall.” Mrs. Beakley explained. “F.O.W.L has started wars with less.”

“She’s not exaggerating,” Gandra added as she tossed aside one more scrap of fabric before wiping her hands on her jeans.

Mrs. Beakley nodded. “When Darkwing uses the gas gun, it is usually in a larger space with fewer people around. Now imagine what would happen if there was suddenly clouds of an unknown substance that resembles smoke or gas in the middle of a large crowd—especially a large crowd in a more enclosed space.”

“Terror, panic,” Darkwing answered, his blood chilling. “All it takes is one person to yell ‘fire’…”

“Or worse,” Scrooge said grimly. “Bomb. Especially if there happens to be a perfect scapegoat who can be blamed for the damage. Especially if there has been tension between two or more groups that were already on precarious terms with each other. It wouldn’t be the root cause of the conflict, but it’d be the spark to turn it into a war.”

“And that’s all it can take to start a war?” Louie asked, his eyes wide. “A little bit of panic at the right time?”

“Historically, there have been wars that started over less,” Kevin spoke up.

“Wait, but I thought F.O.W.L hated chaos, and wars are definitely chaos,” Huey said. “So why create chaos if it’s what they hate?”

“If they can control the chaos, play the game well enough to choose the winner, the benefits outweigh the means of getting there,” Gandra said, pushing herself up to her feet. “Bradford once explained it to me like this: when you get sick, your body produces white blood cells to fight off the sickness. You let it happen naturally, and your health is eventually restored. It could be fast or it could be slow. On the other hand, the sickness could also win, and you can die or get even sicker. Or you can add in medicine, antibiotics, and have a better chance of getting better faster.”

“So, in this case, the sickness and white blood cells would be two groups who are already fighting, or getting ready to fight, but then F.O.W.L acts as medicine to control the outcome?” Gosalyn said, her brow furrowed.

“Precisely,” Gandra said with a nod.

“How many wars, exactly, has F.O.W.L ultimately started?” Elise asked.

“Enough that there is an entire division of S.H.U.S.H devoted to ending them,” Mrs. Beakley answered, which they all silently agreed was a non-answer and they probably didn’t want exact numbers.

“There’s supposed to be a gathering of world leaders later on this week, in Switzerland,” Daisy said suddenly. “It’s a huge deal, politics wise. If F.O.W.L were to attack there, if they had just the right group or country to blame…”

“It’d be global panic,” Donald said grimly. “Someone’s bound to get hurt. A lot of people, both at the summit and elsewhere.”

“Infiltrate security, target the right leaders to incapacitate, and F.O.W.L can step right on in the guise of a savior and level-head,” Scrooge concluded. “I doubt Femme Fatale’s timing is too much of a coincidence.”

“Then we have to stop her before it’s too late,” Darkwing declared.

“If we work fast, we may be able to retrieve the gas gun and foil their plot before the summit,” Mrs. Beakley said. “Which means we need to track down Femme Fatale.”

“How art we to know where Femme Fatale has gone?” Storkules asked. “She can have made much progress since her escape, leaving without a trail for us to follow.”

“Actually, that part’s easy,” Gandra said, making some small sparks with her fingers, seeming pleased with the fact that she was able to fully use her nanites once again. “Well, not really, because we’re going to need to do some location scrambling and bounce off a couple of satellites, but after that, it should be smooth sailing.”

“Bounce off… What are you talking about?” Donald asked.

“I’m going to access F.O.W.L’s network to get Femme Fatale’s itinerary and next known destination,” Gandra said simply.

“It’s not safe,” Fenton argued immediately. “Besides, I highly doubt your old credentials are still valid.”

Gandra grinned. “You’re right. They’re not. But there are still active credentials that I can hack into.”

“It could still be dangerous to hack into Femme Fatale’s access to FOWL’s network,” Rosa warned. “As much as she planned ahead for tonight, she might expect you to do that.”

“I’m actually thinking about using Steelbeak’s access,” Gandra said. “It’ll be easier; he’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, so his password game isn’t that great. Besides, he and Femme Fatale are pretty close. After the directors, Steelbeak is the one she’s most likely to contact after completing a mission. I’ll put in a bug to record all of their communication. If we’re lucky, she’s heading to wherever he is now.”

“Then start hacking, Miss Dee,” Mrs. Beakley said. “Darkwing, McDuck, Launchpad and I will leave tomorrow morning.”

“I’m going, too.”

Everyone turned to look back at Webby, who jumped out of her chair, her back straight. Her eyes were bright and fiery and ready for a fight. And angry. So very angry.

The pink elephant in the room was making itself known. Webby had not liked her earlier question having been brushed off by her grandmother.

“No, you are not,” Mrs. Beakley said sharply.

“Why not?” Webby demanded.

“Because I said so, and that is final.”

“But I’ve fought F.O.W.L agents before! I’ve trained my whole life for this! Why did you even bother training me if you’re not going to let me use my knowledge and skills?”

Mrs. Beakley’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Clearly, you are not ready for the field. After all, _you_ let Femme Fatale escape tonight.”

Webby flinched, and the anger in her face intensified as she yelled, “Clearly, you’re just afraid that Femme Fatale will tell me more about my mom! Because she’s apparently the only one who will tell me anything!”

With that, Webby stormed off, running up the stairs and out of the foyer.

Mrs. Beakley’s shoulders sagged as she watched Webby depart.

Huey, Dewey, and Louie exchanged a glance with each other. “We’ll go talk to her.” Huey said, closing up the first-aid kit.

“We’ll go, too,” Gosalyn said, volunteering herself and Violet, who nodded once in assent.

“I’m coming,” Lena said, allowing Kevin to help her to her feet. To her dads and Elise, she said, “I’m feeling a lot better now.”

As the kids went up the stairs, Scrooge put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. However, Mrs. Beakley brushed it off and disappeared from the foyer.

*****

Dewey rapped his knuckle on Webby’s bedroom door, and everyone winced at the sounds coming from within, the repetitive _thunk thunk thunk_ of projectiles hitting a bullseye.

Lena was the one who grabbed the doorknob and opened it a crack, peeking in. “Pink?”

“What?” Webby demanded grouchily, lobbing another axe at the target.

“You know your grandma didn’t mean what she said, right?” Louie said as they stepped into the room, being careful to keep their distance from Webby’s axe-throwing range. “About it being your fault Femme Fatale got away?”

“Yeah, she got through everyone,” Gosalyn added. “Your granny, Uncle Scrooge, Gizmoduck, Darkwing, Storkules and Penumbra… None of us stood a chance against her.”

“She was remarkably well prepared,” Violet commented. “Femme Fatale found all of our weak points and exploited them.”

“Webby, have you considered that maybe, just maybe, Femme Fatale doesn’t actually know anything about your mom?” Huey asked. “She could have just said that to throw you off so that she could escape. Maybe that was supposed to be her trap for you.”

“Yeah, maybe she realized she couldn’t beat you in a fight or get you in an actual trap, so she had to psych you out!” Dewey said, nodding.

Webby hurled another axe at her target and took a deep breath, putting her hands on her hips, not turning around to face her friends. “I did think about that.”

“And?” Lena prompted.

“And I thought about it,” Webby said. “Really thought about it. If Femme Fatale was lying, if she was just trying to trick me, then why didn’t Granny answer me when I asked if Femme Fatale knew my mom? Then why did Granny tell me not to fight her? Then why won’t she let me go? Then why won’t she answer any of my questions?” Webby turned to face her friends. “Femme Fatale knows something about my mom. Maybe my dad, too. The question isn’t ‘what does she know’, it’s ‘why won’t Granny tell me’? And I’m going to find out all the answers to all my questions. With or without Granny.”

“Count us in,” Gosalyn said.

“Yeah, we’ve got your back,” Louie added.

“We’ll do everything we can to uncover the truth,” Violet said, smiling slightly.

Webby’s eyes widened in shock and confusion.

Dewey went over and put his hand on Webby’s shoulder, looking her in the eye. “Webby, you helped me and my brothers learn the truth about our mom. Of course we’re going to do the same for you. You don’t have to do this on your own.”

Webby smiled, then threw her arms around Dewey’s neck, hugging him tightly, a gesture he was quick to return. “Thank you,” She whispered.

“So where exactly do we begin looking for answers?” Lena asked. “I mean, if you haven’t found anything written down or directly connecting you to your parents in this house by now, there’s no way we’re going to have any luck.”

“The age old dilemma,” Violet commented. “Needing information to find more information, but no readily available sources of information.”

“Actually,” Huey said. “Other than Femme Fatale, we only know of two living sources of information that could give us some sort of clue, and that would be Mrs. Beakley and Uncle Scrooge.”

“I highly doubt Uncle Scrooge will tell us anything,” Dewey said. “Because, if I were him, I’d be too afraid of Mrs. B killing me for doing so.”

“Precisely,” Huey said, pointing at his brother. “Which is why I specified ‘living’. We need to find Duckworth.”

*****

Lena’s eyes glowed blue as she led her friends to Duckworth, who was irritable and trapped by sigil drawn in chalk on a hallway floor towards the back of the house.

As Lena and Violet worked to remove the sigil and free him, the ghost butler explained that he, too, had been lured right into a trap by Femme Fatale.

“Yeah, Femme Fatale is apparently really good at trapping people,” Dewey said. “You should see what she used on the rest of us. When we passed by a few minutes ago, Gyro and Fenton were still trying to figure out how to get the Gizmoduck armor off the wall and Mom’s foot off the floor.”

Duckworth shuddered. “I am not going to be pleased with the mess I encounter, am I?”

“Nope,” Louie said.

“We’ll help you get everything cleaned up,” Webby said suddenly. “If you help me.”

Duckworth arched an eyebrow. “And what, exactly, do you need help with, Webbigail?”

“I have some questions I want answered, and Granny and Uncle Scrooge aren’t going to give them to me,” Webby said. “But I’m hoping you would.”

“That depends entirely on the nature of those questions.”

“Do you know anything about my parents and what happened to them?” Webby asked. “Why Granny and I came to live here? Why Granny left S.H.U.S.H?”

Duckworth was silent for a moment, studying Webby. “No,” He said. “I do not have the answers to any of those questions. I am truly sorry, Webbigail. That information is known solely by your grandmother, and what—if anything—she chose to disclose to Mr. McDuck.”

Webby’s shoulders sank and Dewey put a hand on her shoulder in comfort.

“However,” Duckworth continued. “I can tell you about the night that you and your grandmother arrived, though I do not know how much that will help you. It was a few months after the Spear of Selene incident, and times were… dark. It had been quite some time since Mr. McDuck or I had been in contact with Beakley, so her visit was quite unexpected. Your grandmother appeared on the doorstep in the middle of the night, you in her arms. You were only a few days old at the time, Webbigail, and you and your grandmother seemed to have only arrived with the clothes on her back and a small bag more suited for a few hours’ outing with a newly hatched child than a long term stay—a bag that Beakley was highly protective of, I might add. Your grandmother looked as if she had hardly slept and was insistent upon seeing Mr. McDuck. 

“Mr. McDuck, of course, came down to see what the ruckus was and granted your grandmother’s request for an audience and ushered her towards his study. Your grandmother requested that I prepare a bottle for you, providing both the materials and instructions in quick succession. I did as she requested and met your grandmother and Mr. McDuck in his study some time later. I do not know what words were exchanged in that short period of time, but Mr. McDuck introduced you to me and announced that Beakley would be joining as a member of the household staff, with the both of you living here from now on. I did not press for details, and assumed they would follow or would be provided as need-to-know information.”

Duckworth’s gaze turned serious as he finished, saying, “I do not know what prompted your grandmother to bring you here, Webbigail, but I do know that her actions were, ultimately, to protect you. For I had never before seen Beakley as terrified as she was that night, and I have never seen her such since. I am also certain that, whatever it was that drove her here, it is also what motivated her to limit your ventures outside of the manor and to train you as intensely as she has.”

“Do you think that something could have been tied to Femme Fatale specifically?” Webby asked.

“It most certainly is tied to F.O.W.L as a whole,” Duckworth said. “However, all I have left is mere speculation. Now, I am going to evaluate the damage done to this household and see what can be salvaged.”

“Um, Duckworth?” Webby said a bit shyly.

The ghost butler smiled slightly at her. “Never fear. I am a butler, and have been Mr. McDuck’s butler for a very long time. This conversation never happened.”

With that, he disappeared.

“So what now?” Louie asked. “That’s even less to work with than we had before.”

“It’s enough information to make a decision, though,” Webby said. Her eyes were bright as she declared, “I’m going to find F.O.W.L and Femme Fatale, too.”

“But your granny said no,” Lena said.

“Yes, she did, but that can’t stop me from stowing away.” Webby said.

“That sounds pretty dangerous,” Huey said worriedly. “Especially if you’re going alone. What if something happens?”

“That’s why I’m going with her,” Gosalyn said, slinging her arm around Webby’s shoulder. “If my dad and Launchpad are both going, then they’ll most likely have me stay here. So if we were to say that poor depressed and angry Webby here needed some ‘girl time’, and so we went to hang out with Violet and Lena…”

“And Vi and I can run interference so that none of the adults find out that you’re not actually at our house,” Lena said.

“It might actually work, without us getting caught.” Gosalyn said with a nod.

Huey frowned. “This is so risky, and I’m not just talking about the trouble we’ll get in if we’re caught. If you somehow manage to not get caught on the way and Uncle Scrooge, Mrs. Beakley, Darkwing, and Launchpad don’t know you tagged along, and something happens so that you get caught by F.O.W.L…”

“We’ll stay in constant communication,” Webby said. “We’ll borrow tech from Dr. Gearloose’s lab.”

“Risk a run-in with Gyro’s crazy-pants anti-theft system? Sure, why not? F.O.W.L will be a piece of cake to take on after that,” Louie said sarcastically.

“We may also be able to utilize Gandra’s knowledge of F.O.W.L as well,” Violet added. “She may not know everything, but she may have enough to help us out. Especially if she has found a work-around to access F.O.W.L’s files again.”

“That may be more difficult,” Lena said. “We’d have to be upfront with Gandra about what we’re doing if we want her help. She won’t buy any lies we could come up with. But at the same time, she won’t lie to our dads or anyone else if she knows Webby and Gosalyn are gone.”

“I’ll be the go-between with Gandra,” Huey said, though a bit reluctantly. “I’ll say I want more information about F.O.W.L so that we’re better prepared for next time. You and Violet don’t have to be involved in that area.”

“Don’t forget, there’s a good chance Mrs. B’s going to tell Gandra—or any of the other adults—to not tell us anything,” Louie warned. “You’re going to have to find a good way to convince Gandra to talk to you if that’s the case.”

“And it better not involve guilting her over what happened with Fenton,” Lena said sharply, folding her arms over her chest and narrowing her eyes at Huey. “That’s too much salt in a very fresh wound for her.”

“I wouldn’t!” Huey insisted, holding up his hands defensively. “I’ll just be as upfront with Gandra as much as I can. Use the truth to convince her to talk to me without, you know, telling her the whole truth.”

“You guys are really willing to risk getting in a whole lot of trouble and do a whole lot of work, for me?” Webby asked, sounding a bit hesitant.

“Of course we are, Webs,” Louie told her. “We said we’ll do whatever we can to help you, and we meant it.”

“Yeah, you’re our best friend,” Gosalyn added. “We’re here for you, one-hundred percent!”

“Alright, team!” Dewey said with a grin. “Let’s Dew this! For Webby!”

He stuck his hand out in front of him, and everyone quickly reached out to put their hands into a pile, one on top of the other. Webby put her hand on last, her eyes shining with tears.

These guys really were her best friends...

*****

“Gyro. Hey. Gyro. Gy- _ro_ … Hey. Hey. Gyro.”

“What do you want, Della?” Gyro snapped, not turning to look at her, instead walking around the Gizmoduck armor, staring at it. Fenton merely stood back and watched Gyro do the exact same thing he had been doing. It wasn’t doing any good in getting the armor off the wall yet.

“I was kind of hoping you could give me a _leg_ up. I know you can do something _leg_ -endary. You know, because as I don’t have a _leg_ to stand on. Some fresh _legs_ would come in handy right about now.”

Gyro finally turned and gave her a withering look. “I will get to your leg as soon as I can get the Gizmoduck armor unstuck!”

“Oh come on!” Della groaned and stuck out her residual limb, gesturing it as she said, “I’m literally on my last leg! Can’t you just, I don’t know, reverse the polarity and put it into hyperdrive already?”

“Science doesn’t work that way, Della!” Gyro yelled, waving his hands in the air. “It’s not like I can just spout technobabble like it’s some magic spell where I can just say the words ‘molecular structure’ and ‘chemical reaction’ and ‘quantum chromodynamics’ and just have science do what I want!”

At that moment, the Gizmoduck armor landed on the floor in a crash and Della’s leg toppled over with a much-less-impressive crash.

“Huh,” Gyro said in the resulting silence as he looked over his shoulder. “Guess I can do that. Never mind.”

“I guess whatever was magnetized wore off,” Fenton said, going over to the wall to inspect it, squinting slightly at the wood. Not that it would do much good. He had a feeling he’d need a powerful microscope to figure out what, exactly, Femme Fatale had used.

“Nope, I’m taking full credit for this,” Gyro declared as he retrieved Della’s leg and brought it to her. "This was a patented Gyro Gearloose solution."

Launchpad stuck his head into the room. “I heard crashing.”

“The song of your people has been sung in celebration of the miracle de-magnetizing of our stuff,” Darkwing said, gesturing about the room. Then he frowned. “Hey, I thought you were going to bring up a box for me and Gos to take home.”

“Yeah, so did I,” Launchpad said, shaking his head slightly.

“Again?” Darkwing exclaimed incredulously.

“Again what?” Donald asked.

“So I’ve been packing up my stuff in the garage to move in with Drake and Gos, right?” Launchpad said.

“Yeah?” Della said, prompting him to go on.

“Well, sometimes, when I finish packing a box and walk away from it for a while, I come back and find all my stuff unpacked.” Launchpad explained. “And put back where it was before I packed it. Sometimes, it’ll happen even if the box isn’t full.”

“That’s weird,” Daisy commented, her brow furrowing. “Or, perhaps not, given this house. Do you think it’s something magical that could be doing it?”

“I’ve asked Mr. McD, and he can’t think of anything,” Launchpad explained. “And it’s not Duckworth or Mrs. B. They don’t go anywhere near the garage.”

“It doesn’t sound like a prank one of the kids would pull,” Donald said frowning. “Della and I’ll keep an eye on things while you’re gone, see if we can figure out what’s happening.”

“I’d appreciate it,” Launchpad said.

“Yeah, especially since that’s the main thing that has kept Launchpad from having moved in already,” Darkwing added.

“You can count on us!” Della declared. “Just leave it to the Duck twins, and we’ll have this mystery solved!”

Across the room, Fenton and Gyro were inspecting the Gizmoduck armor for damage.

“Seems like it held up well,” Gyro said as he studied one of the arms.

“Not a scratch, though a lot of dust and dirt from that vase and the flowers it held,” Fenton confirmed.

“And at least we know what we need to add to the armor next,” Gyro said. “An anti-magnet system. We’re lucky Megavolt or some other would-be supervillain hasn’t gone crazy with a super magnet yet.” He indicated for Fenton to help him turn the suit over so that it was on its back. After they did so, Gyro stood up, tapping his foot slightly as he stared down at the armor. “It’s going to have to be hardware, of course, with some software components.”

“I understand the hardware, but software?” Fenton asked.

“You’d need to be able to reverse the polarity of a magnet, but that means having a magnet within the suit itself—a very strong magnet at that. And I don’t think you want to attract every single car, bicycle, and street sign you pass. Probably also don’t want to wipe every computer you happen to get near. Point is, if we’re going to add a magnet, it needs to be something you can turn on and off. Hence software.”

“Ah, good point,” Fenton agreed.

“I’m thinking,” Gyro said, kneeling down beside the armor, tapping a finger to his chin. “It’ll need to be towards the center of gravity, but what I’m not sure about yet is if it will be a better fit here.” He tapped a finger to the breastplate. “Or here.” He moved his finger to tap on the midriff.

Fenton felt as if ice water ran down his spine, his eyes on Gyro’s finger. He took a deep breath and tried to ignore the imaginary pains that zinged through his gut, the invisible fists grabbing his lungs.

Some hardware they could add to the armor without software; it just automatically connected with what was already there. It could be done with Fenton out of the armor. But a hardware with software addition, Fenton needed to be in the armor. And if Dr. Gearloose wanted to add something in either of the two places he was thinking about, it meant opening up the armor. And that meant…

Cold that seeped through layers upon layers of metal. Sharp, stabbing pain from all angles, white hot and ice cold. Bright lights, noises coming from things he couldn’t see. Feeling hands and things, jabbing, poking, prodding, as if they were actually touching him. Trapped. He was trapped. He couldn’t move and he was trapped and no one knew where he was, he didn’t even know where he was, he was trapped—by Black Heron, by F.O.W.L, by the armor, by his own body’s inability to move.

_Breathe, breathe, breathe. Everything is fine. Everything is back to normal. Normal is safe. You’re safe. Just breathe, breathe, breathe..._

“We’ve got time,” Fenton said suddenly. “We don’t have to add anything new anytime soon.”

“Right?” Gyro said, glancing up at him with a weird look. “Obviously we’ve got to do designs and simulations and build the darn thing first.”

“Exactly,” Fenton said, nodding rapidly. “And if Darkwing’s going to be gone for a little while, then Gizmoduck will be needed. Shouldn’t do anything new to the armor without Darkwing as back-up. Something could go wrong, you know?”

“I’ve made a lot of things that have surprisingly gained sentience and turned evil, but I highly doubt a magnet will, if that is what you mean by that,” Gyro said dryly as he stood up, adjusting his glasses slightly. “But your vote of confidence is always appreciated, intern.”

Fenton was glad to see Gandra and Mr. McDuck coming down the stairs then, a very welcome distraction from his current conversation. Especially seeing the gleam in Gandra’s eyes that spoke for her: she had determined where Femme Fatale was headed to.

“Well, gentlemen,” Gandra said, looking between Scrooge, Darkwing, and Launchpad. “Looks like you’re headed to Ireland. More specifically, Northern Ireland. Belfast, to be even more precise.”

“Anything you can tell us about what we’ll be getting into?” Darkwing asked.

“Not really,” Gandra admitted. “Other than it’s a more recent F.O.W.L base. Within the last two decades, at least. It fits F.O.W.L’s preferences for a location, being a coastal city. Easier to hide, easier to escape. This one is located in the area known as the Titanic Quarter.”

“Wait, Titanic as in…?” Fenton said.

“Aye, _that_ Titanic,” Scrooge confirmed. “The port that the ship sailed from on its ill-fated maiden voyage was Liverpool, England, but she was built in Belfast. The city has a long history of ship-building.”

“Of all the cities in the world, of all of F.O.W.L’s bases in the world, and she’s going to Belfast?”

They all turned to see Mrs. Beakley in the door leading to the dining room, her face twisted in displeasure.

“You have something against the city, Mrs. B?” Donald asked.

“I was… stationed there. Once. A long time ago.” Mrs. Beakley said. “It brings about a lot of memories. Some good. Mostly bad.”

Scrooge’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “I didnae know ye were ever in Belfast.”

“It was a long time ago,” Mrs. Beakley said again. “And it doesn’t matter. If Femme Fatale went to Belfast, then Belfast is where we shall go.”

Above, in the vents, Webby and Dewey looked at each other before crawling back towards Webby’s room.

“Well?” Gosalyn prompted when they climbed out of the vent, landing on the floor and dusting themselves off. “Where are we headed?”

“To the land of shamrocks and leprechauns,” Webby proclaimed. “Pack your bags, Gosalyn, our course is set for Belfast, Northern Ireland!”

******

Honker Muddlefoot was incredibly intelligent for a five year old. Everyone told him so. He had the IQ tests to prove it, too, so he knew it wasn’t just people being nice. His parents and grandparents like to brag about how smart Honker was, which Honker thought was supposed to be a good thing but it usually made him want to hide.

Some people would tell him that he was too smart for his own good. His brother, mostly. Once or twice some adult in authority who didn’t like being corrected, no matter how polite Honker was when he told them that they were wrong. His mother sometimes said it with a bit of a sigh when he sheepishly brought home notes for her to sign that said that he’d been reading in class again; it wasn’t his fault that, even taking sixth-grade classes, he got bored and knew the material.

One of the nice things about moving to Duckburg, though, was being next door to his uncle, Drake. Honker had never met his uncle until right before the move; he hadn’t even known his mother had a second brother until then. So what Honker knew about his Uncle Drakey was very little, even after months of living next door to him and spending some time with the man.

He knew a lot of the basics, really. Drake had a daughter, Honker’s cousin, Gosalyn; she was adopted, and in his classes at school, and what his mother called a ‘wild child’. In other words, she was cool. Drake was dating Mr. Launchpad, who was a pilot and the driver for a billionaire named Scrooge McDuck. About Drake himself, however, Honker knew the least amount of information; mostly, Honker knew that his uncle loved an old television show called _Darkwing Duck_ (Honker had watched a few episodes, to be polite and try to understand the appeal; it was… interesting. A bit violent, a lot of the humor hadn’t aged well, and the school play that Champ had been in last year had better effects.) and seemed to admire the superhero who used the same name and gimmicks to protect Duckburg. (Honker wisely kept his opinion that Gizmoduck was a cooler superhero to himself.) Honker also knew that, professionally, Drake had been an actor for some time, but was now a security guard for Mr. McDuck.

Honker wasn’t quite sure what, exactly, his uncle did as a security guard. He apparently worked the night shift, since he slept during the day, went to work at night, and drank a lot of coffee when he was awake. But Honker had started to suspect that Uncle Drakey wasn’t like the security guards he saw whenever he went to the mall, or a big sporting event with his family, or even the very nice men and women who worked at the St. Canard city hall with his grandfather. No, he was fairly certain that his uncle’s job was much more dangerous than being a simple night guard.

It all started a few months before; on the weekends, Honker would stay up past his bedtime and use his telescope to look at the stars. There was less light pollution in Duckburg, which was a definite plus compared to living in St. Canard. His parents didn’t know about this habit, though, and Honker had enough sense to not tell them about it, which is why he didn’t say anything when he watched through his bedroom window as Mr. Launchpad half-led, half-carried Uncle Drakey out of the car, Gosalyn rushing past both of them to open the front door. Honker could only watch as his uncle’s feet dragged sluggishly, and he held his arm to him in a weird way.

Honker had gone over the next day, hoping to see his uncle and find out if he was okay, but he was barred by Gosalyn, who just said that her dad was asleep and in a bad mood when he was awake before closing the door on Honker. It wasn’t until a few days later, when Honker saw that Uncle Drakey hadn’t been going to work, that he tried again and first saw the bandages on his uncle’s arm. When Honker asked what happened, Uncle Drakey had simply shrugged and said, “Workplace accident. Don’t tell your mom.”

One workplace accident was believable. Except that every bruise and scratch Honker took notice of was given the same label, with the same order to not tell his mother. (Why did Uncle Drakey think that Honker was going to tell his mom? And what would happen if she did know? Nevertheless, he wasn’t in a rush to find out.)

What really made Honker suspicious about his uncle’s job was the night Drake came home completely unable to see. Another workplace accident? What kind of workplace had this many accidents—on the night shift? Sure, his uncle regained his sight after a day or two, but Honker still couldn’t begin to guess how it had happened in the first place.

So it caught his attention when, while he sat on the couch watching Champ play a video game, he figured out that his mother was arguing on the phone with her brother.

“Aren’t you going to that silly convention at the end of the month? So why are you going on another trip so soon? Work trip? What kind of work trip? Don’t give me that attitude, Drake Mallard, when you want something from your dear, loving sister. Uh huh. Uh huh. What, an hour from now? How long have you—? Fine. Fine. I’ll send Champ over in a minute.” Binkie Muddlefoot shook her head and covered the mouthpiece of her phone as she said to her oldest son, “Champ, be a dear and run next door and get your uncle’s spare house key from him, will you?”

“Mom, I’m in the middle of something!” Champ whined.

“I’ll go get it,” Honker said, slipping off the couch.

“Thank you, Honker,” Binkie said distractedly.

Honker went next door and knocked on the door.

“It’s open!” Uncle Drakey called down, and Honker opened the door.

“Uncle Drakey?” Honker called as he closed the door behind him. “Gosalyn?”

“We’re upstairs, Honker,” Uncle Drakey called again.

Honker went up the stairs and found his uncle in his bedroom, wrestling with a suitcase zipper.

“Come on,” Uncle Drakey grumbled. “Come on, you stupid thing, it’s not that full, what is wrong with you?”

“Um, Uncle Drakey?” Honker said. “You’ve got, well, you’ve got something sticking out of the suitcase.”

A purple something. Not the light purple of the checkered shirt his uncle usually wore. A dark purple. Why did it look oddly familiar, though?

Uncle Drakey huffed and sighed. “Great. Of course. Great.” He wrestled the zipper back and opened the suitcase…

Then suddenly, he slammed it shut, standing in front of it as he looked down at Honker.

“Honker!” Uncle Drakey said cheerfully. “Good to see you, kiddo. Happier to see you than your brother, that’s for sure, but let’s keep that as our little secret, shall we?”

Honker nodded. He and his uncle had a lot of little secrets; it made Honker feel a bit grown up. Included in the family that was his but also wasn’t. And it helped that a lot of those little secrets included cookies before dinner and comic books that his mom said would rot his brain. It made the little secrets about his uncle’s injuries and preference for Honker over his older brother that much easier to keep.

Honker had a feeling that there was something in that suitcase that his uncle didn’t want him to see. Something that couldn’t be a little secret. He wasn’t sure what led him to believe that, but he believed it whole-heartedly.

Uncle Drakey pulled out his key ring, removed his house key, and handed it to Honker, ruffling the boy’s hair as he did so. “Thanks for coming over to get this.”

“You’re going on a trip?” Honker asked.

“Yeah, for work,” Uncle Drakey said, glancing behind him at his suitcase. “Flight leaves in an hour. It was a bit… unexpected. As an understatement.”

Honker nodded, not really understanding.

“Right, well, I need to get back to packing,” Uncle Drakey said. “Gos is in her room if you want to say hi. Oh, and go ahead and take some cookies from the jar in the kitchen on your way out. Can’t have them getting stale while we’re gone.”

“Gosalyn is leaving, too?” Honker asked.

“She’s going to stay with some friends while me and Launchpad are away.” Uncle Drakey said, herding Honker towards the door. “I’ll see you when I get back, okay, Honker? Can’t make any promises, but I’ll try and bring you home a souvenir.”

“Um, thank you?” Honker said, feeling more confused than ever. “Have a good trip, Uncle Drakey.”

“Thanks, kiddo.” Uncle Drakey said, leaving Honker in the hallway before returning into his room.

Honker walked a few steps down the hall, then tiptoed back towards his uncle’s room, peeking around the corner.

He watched as his uncle pulled out a… purple blanket? Uncle Drakey grumbled something about ‘thank goodness for permanent press’ as he refolded it and put it in the suitcase. Honker couldn’t tell what else was in there, but he crept away towards Gosalyn’s room, where he found her also packing a bag, hers a smaller backpack compared to the carry-on size suitcase her father was preparing.

“Hey, Honk,” Gosalyn said, glancing up from where she was rolling a pair of socks together.

“I came to get a key from your dad and say hi,” Honker said. “Especially since you’re leaving for a few days.”

“Yeah, just for a few days,” Gosalyn said, stuffing the rolled socks into the bag. Honker glanced at her bed, which seemed to have a lot of dark clothing laid out on it. Then he caught a glimpse of Gosalyn’s phone, displaying a weather forecast for… Belfast, Northern Ireland? Why did Gosalyn want to know the weather in another country halfway around the world?

“So your dad said you’re going to stay with some friends?” Honker said.

“Yep.”

“Here in Duckburg?”

“Where else?”

Honker couldn’t help it. He glanced at her phone again.

Gosalyn snatched her phone up, turning off the screen and putting it in her pocket.

“Can’t forget that, now can I?” She said, smiling at him.

The way she said it was very similar to the way Uncle Drakey spoke of their shared ‘little secrets’. Except, Honker got the feeling this wasn’t a secret. This was something he was supposed to forget he ever saw.

“D-don’t forget to pack your charger, too,” Honker said. “It might be hard to get a new one, if you forget it.”

Gosalyn’s smile grew a bit and she patted Honker on the head. “Good thinking, Honk. Good thinking.”

Honker left his uncle’s house, feeling more confused than he had when he entered it.

*****

“So you got what you went for?” Steelbeak asked over the video chat.

“Of course,” Femme Fatale said as she leaned back in her seat. She was currently riding in style, on the private plane of one of her long-term marks, who had no idea that his lover was slowly draining money from his company and funding F.O.W.L. For added emphasis to her statement, she pulled out the gas gun, showing it to Steelbeak. She smirked at the look of awe on his face. “What? Did you think I couldn’t do it?”

“No! ‘Course not!” Steelbeak said with a scoff. “Despite what Black Heron thinks, I’m not stupid enough to doubt you when you say you’re gonna do something. You’re scary when you say you’re gonna do something crazy like this.”

“That’s what makes me an amazing asset to F.O.W.L,” Femme Fatale said with a chuckle. “I’m scary and I’m crazy, but I hide the former well and utilize the latter to perfection.”

“Ugh, will you stop this incessant blabbering and idle chit-chat and get to the good stuff?” A voice from off screen yelled in frustration.

Ironically, that just improved Femme Fatale’s mood. “It appears we have an eavesdropper, Steelbeak. A rather insistent one at that who thinks we’re not gossiping enough for her tastes.”

At that, Black Heron suddenly appeared, pushing Steelbeak’s chair to the side some as she glared at Femme Fatale.

“I just want to know,” Black Heron said snappishly. “What happened with the brat. Did you take her down or not?”

The only thing that stopped Femme Fatale from running her finger over the sore spot on her beak was reminding herself just how much time and make-up went into covering it perfectly.

“She’s feistier than I expected,” Femme Fatale said, twisting the gas gun in her hands as a further means to occupy herself as she thought about that fight. “Small, but a powerhouse. And to think, she hasn’t even reached her prime, her full potential…”

Black Heron huffed. “I’m not talking about _that_ brat,” She said. “I’m clearly referring to the _other_ brat. The big one.”

“Dee?” Femme Fatale said, belatedly realizing that was who Black Heron was referring to in the first place. Of course Black Heron was asking about Dee… “Oh. Yes. Your glob of chemicals and who-knows-what-else worked. She was pissed.”

Black Heron grinned. “Excellent.”

“Wait, so you fought the kid?” Steelbeak prodded. “Like, _the_ kid? Twenty-Two’s kid? What’s her name, Debbie Vander-whatsit?”

“Webby,” Femme Fatale corrected. “Webby Vanderquack. Twenty-Two’s granddaughter.”

“Supposed granddaughter,” Black Heron added, putting a hand on her hip. “I, for one, have doubts that the child is in any way related to Twenty-Two. That would imply certain things.”

“Like what?” Steelbeak asked.

“That Twenty-Two would have had a child of her own at some point, for one,” Femme Fatale said.

“Which is laughable,” Black Heron said, emphasizing her statement with a laugh of her own. “I mean, can you even imagine it? Twenty-Two as a mother.”

“No,” Femme Fatale said, twisting the gas gun around in her hands slightly, studying it. “Can’t imagine it at all.” She thought for a second, then she said, “I knew the girl’s mother. A long time ago.”

“Really?” Black Heron said, surprised. “Who was she?”

“No one important,” Femme Fatale said, running her finger along the length of the barrel. “Some S.H.U.S.H nobody. She could have been great. Been greater than Twenty-Two. I told her so. I think I was the only one. Everyone else told her that, if she worked hard, she might someday achieve equal greatness to Twenty-Two. I pitied her. But she was a good girl and stayed in her lane. No one could tell that she was bitter about the role she had been given to play. She was so good at it, in fact, that she could look in the mirror and not see it herself.”

“But you could see through this seemingly impenetrable façade?” Black Heron questioned skeptically, raising an eyebrow.

Femme Fatale looked up and at the screen. “Yes. I could. I saw something of myself in her. The things that led me to F.O.W.L.” She set aside the gas gun and leaned back in her seat. “Tried to recruit her to the cause. Failed. No big loss.”

“She still work for S.H.U.S.H then? The kid’s mom?” Steelbeak asked proddingly. “You _sure_ we haven’t heard of her?”

“Positive,” Femme Fatale said with a small nod. “She died a long time ago. I personally made sure of it.” She stretched like a cat and said, “I’m going to get some sleep. I’ll see you two when I arrive in Belfast.”

Without waiting for a farewell, Femme Fatale ended the call and set aside her computer, reclining her seat. She was still running on a high that came from her victory. She literally held her long-awaited prize in her hands, and it hadn’t yet felt real.

Perhaps, she thought wryly, because she now had a new goal, a new prize, a new victory to seize.

Femme Fatale was going to recruit Webby Vanderquack, S.H.U.S.H Agent Twenty-Two’s pride and joy, to F.O.W.L.


	3. Chapter 3

Femme Fatale’s favorite thing about being a Honey Pot was that she was a spy who was essentially the antithesis of a spy.

Spies were supposed to slip under the radar, to not be seen or heard. To do their job in the dark.

But Femme Fatale was good at her job, and her job thrust her into the spotlight. And she was always going to sparkle.

It was how she got through arrivals at Belfast International Airport so easily. It’s how she got a lot of things done easily, really. She dragged a large designer-brand suitcase full of designer-brand clothes, make-up and expensive jewelry—some real, some really good fakes—behind her as she traveled through the airport. She looked glamorous among the crowds of weary travelers. She wore heels, stylish clothes, designer sunglasses, and pulled her passport—fake name, of course—from a handbag that cost more than the British customs agent made in a year. And Femme Fatale could see in his eyes that he knew that particular fact as he scowled down at her passport before stamping it and waving her through.

Femme Fatale strutted through the airport, knowing she was getting envious glares and people wondering how she did it, how she didn’t look like she just got off an overnight flight over the Atlantic. They’d remember her clothes, her poise, her power. But they wouldn’t remember her face or any other defining features. Two sisters would later bicker while telling the story to a cousin over whether she was a swan or a goose. Some wouldn’t even remember that she was avian at all. 

Femme Fatale found Steelbeak’s car easily in the line outside the airport. He didn’t get out of the car to help her put her suitcase in the boot, and she didn’t expect him to. No one will really, truly remember the fashionable woman who looked and walked like she belonged on a fashion runway instead of an airport runway, but they’d remember a rooster with a metal beak.

Femme Fatale slipped into the passenger side and smiled at Steelbeak, tugging down her sunglasses slightly to glance at him. “Thanks for picking me up.”

“Thank you for giving me an excuse to get off base for a while,” Steelbeak said, putting the car into gear. “They give you any trouble in there?”

“Of course not,” Femme Fatale said, taking off her sunglasses. They were unnecessary, now that she was out of the airport and in the car. Unnecessary in general, really. She was in Ireland, and the overcast sky promised a good Irish rainstorm. Nevertheless, Femme Fatale wanted to see it all clearly.

And a smile slid over her face as Steelbeak drove them towards the Titanic Quarter. A familiar sight greeted her, the thing she had been anticipating seeing the most.

Belfast was known for many things, and the landmarks were one of them. The vibrant murals that told stories of the history of Belfast and the Province of Ulster—the good, the bad, and the ugly. The magnificent Queen’s University and grand city hall. Fantastic sculptures were dotted throughout the city. There was even several stained glass windows depicting scenes from the famous fantasy television show filmed in Northern Ireland, _Tournament of Power_ , that had been added a few years before and spread throughout Belfast, leading fans on a sort-of scavenger hunt to find them all.

But Femme Fatale’s favorite—and the most iconic—feature of Belfast was the two large, almost rectangular yellow cranes known as Samson and Goliath. Each had ‘H & W’ painted in black across the top beams. It stood for Harland and Wolff, the shipbuilding company who owned and still operated the cranes. But some people said that the phrase 'H & W' stood for other things. Particularly…

“Hello and welcome,” Femme Fatale whispered to herself, smiling fondly up at the cranes.

The city was greeting her, welcoming her back.

And it was good to be back.

Femme Fatale leaned back in her seat, turning her head to grin at Steelbeak.

“So, I’ve got the most delicious idea for what to do after we’re done with the Switzerland job.”

*****

Gosalyn wrapped her arms tight around her father, then gave Launchpad a hug. She had just released him when she let out a yelp as Drake grabbed her for another hug.

“Geeze, Dad, chill, it’ll only be for a few days,” Gosalyn griped from where she dangled slightly in her father’s arms, rolling her eyes dramatically.

“I know, I know,” Drake said, setting her on her feet again.

“And it’s not like we haven’t spent more than a day apart ever.”

“I know, I know,” Drake said again, rolling his eyes now. “Can’t a dad miss his kid?”

Gosalyn grinned at him. “Don’t worry, Dad, you can’t miss me when I’m there with you in spirit, right?”

Hmm. Spirit… Gosalyn made a mental note to herself: if she and Webby were close to being caught on board the Sun Chaser, they should totally try and convince the adults that the plane was just haunted instead. They’d believe that. Right?

Drake hugged Gosalyn again and said, “Yeah. Though I won’t lie, it’ll be easier knowing you’re safe here in Duckburg.”

“Yeah,” Launchpad agreed, smoothing back Gosalyn’s hair. “Far away from that crazy Femme Fatale lady and the rest of F.O.W.L.”

Gosalyn smiled at them and hoped it looked natural. Okay, it was definitely time to jet… Especially before the jet itself took off…

Fortunately, the boys came to the rescue then.

“Hey, Gos,” Dewey said. “Webby’s refusing to come out of her room.”

“She yelled at us and said that we wouldn’t understand her pain because we’re boys,” Huey added solemnly, his eyes closed and head bowed, hand on his chest.

“And as you’re a girl…” Louie said in a prompting manner.

Gosalyn nodded, glad that all was—so far—going to plan. “I’ll go talk to her. Though this may totally call for some girl time with Violet and Lena.” She turned to her dad and Launchpad and said, “Sorry, gotta go. Duty calls. It’s a girl thing, you wouldn’t understand.”

“Good luck!” Launchpad told her.

“Yeah, Gos, good luck,” Louie said, giving her a thumbs up.

“We’re rooting for you!” Dewey told her, high-fiving her as she passed him.

“Make good choices!” Huey called out, cupping his hands around his beak.

“Ah, to be at that age where you don’t understand girls,” Launchpad said, putting an arm around Drake’s shoulders.

Drake frowned. “Do you… You actually understand girls?”

“Sure don’t,” Launchpad said with a grin and not missing a beat. “Help me do a pre-flight check?”

“Yeah, sounds like a thing two grown men who don’t understand girls should do,” Drake said, following Launchpad onto the Sun Chaser.

They didn’t even notice the triplets grinning at each other.

“Phase two time,” Dewey whispered.

“Yeah, Huey, you’re up,” Louie said, giving his brother a slap on the back.

Huey reached up and adjusted his hat, his eyes intense as he declared, “To the lab!”

*****

Huey entered the lab at the Money Bin, looking around for Gandra. Instead, he saw Fenton, and smiled, going over to say ‘hi’ to his friend, who could also point him in the direction of Gandra.

“Good morning, Fent—” Huey cut himself off once he actually saw Fenton. Like, got a good look at him. And he looked awful, with dark shadows under his eyes that had definitely not been there when Huey last saw him, and he had only seen him—Huey did a quick mental calculation—just over twelve hours ago. “Are you okay?”

“Why does everyone keep asking me that?” Fenton grumbled, shooting Huey a… well, it wasn’t quite a glare but it wasn’t a friendly look either. Which was very unlike Fenton. It was kind of scary, even.

“Because… well, it’s just…” Huey stumbled and stuttered, looking for the right words. “You, uh… can I get you more coffee?” He offered this last with a hopefully not-forced-looking smile.

This did not make Fenton look any happier, and he took a long drink out of the mug of coffee he had in his hand.

Ah, yes, he already had coffee… More couldn’t hurt though, right?

“Um, did you get enough sleep last night?” Huey asked as gently as he could.

“Yes,” Fenton said, setting down his mug and picking up his pencil, turning back to whatever it was he had been working on when Huey came in. “I’m fine. What do you need?”

“I, well, uh, I was hoping to talk to Gandra?” Huey said awkwardly. “Is she, um, is she in today?”

Fenton pointed to somewhere across the lab with his pencil, then drank more of his coffee.

Huey realized then that he was not likely to get another word out of Fenton, and that he shouldn’t press his luck trying to get one. “Okay, then. Thanks. See you later?”

With that, Huey retreated into the general direction of where Fenton had pointed him. Fortunately, he found Gandra fairly easily, goggles on her face and a welding tool in her hand, using a large magnifying glass to do… Huey wasn’t quite sure, but knowing Gandra it was creating very tiny pieces of technology.

He cleared his throat, not wanting to get too close to Gandra and startle her. She fortunately heard him and paused in what she was doing, swiveling around on her seat and pushing up her goggles.

“Sup, Red?” Gandra said. She grabbed a second pair of goggles from a drawer beside her and tossed them at Huey, who scrambled to catch them. “Take a seat.”

Huey put on the goggles, then went around the table she was working at to climb onto the stool there.

“Um, this isn’t what I was coming to find you for, but I’m going to ask anyway,” Huey said in a low voice. “Is Fenton okay?”

Gandra let out a small huff, blowing her bangs out of her eyes as she said, “I don’t know, to be honest. He says he is. At least, when Gearloose, Manny and I asked him, that’s what he said. Anyways, what did you want to talk to me about?”

Huey sat up straighter in his seat, clasping. “Well, I was hoping you might know more about Femme Fatale. I’m trying to gather as much information as I can about F.O.W.L agents. And since she blindsided us last night, and seemed to know a lot about us, I figure the more we know about her, the more we can use that to our advantage the next time she comes after us.”

Gandra set aside her tool again, lifted her goggles so that they rested on top of her head, and leaned her elbows on the table.

“What exactly do you want to know?” She asked.

“Whatever you know,” Huey responded. That seemed like a solid answer, a safe answer. Let Gandra take the lead and she wouldn’t even know what he was really up to.

“That’s not much, kid,” Gandra admitted. “I’ve only interacted with Femme Fatale a handful of times. She’s one of F.O.W.L’s top agents, so only the top brass knows the most about her.” Gandra tapped her fingertips on the tabletop, thinking, before saying, “I know she was recruited young. She was eighteen or nineteen at the time, I think. She told me the first time I met her that I broke her record for youngest recruit, but she seemed to be more amused by that than upset. To be honest, I may have met her more times than I know for sure; she’s good at disguising herself, as she displayed last night. Scary good.”

“What about some of the other agents?” Huey asked. “Like that Steelbeak guy. Anything you can tell me about him? You said he and Femme Fatale often work together, right?”

Huey realized then and there that he made a mistake. A critical one. Gandra’s eyes flashed, suspicion heavy in her gaze, scrutinizing him.

“I don’t recall mentioning Steelbeak in relation to Femme Fatale around you,” Gandra said slowly.

Huey gulped. “Well, I mean… I heard… My mom. And Uncle Donald. They were talking about it. Said that you said… That is to say—”

“That you—or one of your brothers or one of your friends or some combination—have been eavesdropping on conversations none of you should be sticking your beaks into,” Gandra said flatly. She put her goggles back over her eyes and picked up her soldering tool, going back to work. “Look, Huey, this stuff is dangerous. Like, more dangerous than you could ever imagine. I’m not saying that to scare you or tell you to butt out, but you need to know what you’re getting into. I didn’t, and I’m still paying for that mistake. It’s why I left, it’s why I’m here, and it’s why I’m trying to do everything possible to help McDuck take down F.O.W.L. And you know what? They’re expecting me to do just that, they put me in the position to do just that, and they’ll gladly destroy me for it. So whatever you’re doing—whatever you’re really doing, because I don’t really believe you when you say you’re just data gathering—I highly recommend reconsidering.”

_It’s too late for that,_ Huey thought, stomach churning. He knew it was dangerous. Webby and Gosalyn knew it was dangerous. They all knew it was dangerous, what they were doing. But they made a promise that they’d still try.

But Huey knew one thing for sure: he wasn’t going to get any more information out of Gandra. 

He had one shot, and he blew it. He had failed in his role in the mission. Failed Webby.

“Okay,” Huey said, trying to keep the waver out of his voice. “Well, thanks anyway, Gandra.”

He slipped off the stool and started to walk away, when he heard Gandra say, “Hold up a second.”

Huey turned to look back at Gandra, who gazed past him for a moment, then beckoned him closer. She dropped her voice to a whisper and said, “Look, if you and your friends want to do something helpful… It’s Fenton’s first week back as Gizmoduck, and it’s not off to a great start. Could you guys just help me out a bit and keep an eye on Fenton for the next couple days? At least till Drake and Launchpad get back?”

That, at least, was something Huey could do, and do well. At least, he hoped he could actually do it. He was already feeling like he had let down one friend today, and he wasn’t in a rush to let down any more.

Still, Huey nodded.

If nothing else, he needed something to occupy his time and thoughts while he worried about Webby and Gosalyn.

*****

“I’m really sorry, Webby, I really screwed this up.” Huey said.

Webby frowned but nodded. “That’s okay, Huey,” She assured her friend over the phone. “We knew asking Gandra was only worth a try. At least you got a little bit of information.”

Still, she would have liked more than what Huey had learned about Femme Fatale. At least she had some more information about Belfast and the gathering in Switzerland; that research had occupied her and Gosalyn for the first part of their journey. Violet and Lena had sent more articles, maps, and everything they could find on the summit, and it further solidified their thoughts that F.O.W.L would strike there next. It was an ideal target, especially with a well-documented mediation session planned between two South American countries who had a border dispute that was quickly escalating into conflict. Many were holding their breath to see if it would result in a peaceful agreement or war.

Webby knew which one F.O.W.L wanted. She hadn’t needed the additional information Louie had found about the fact that the main source of the argument between these two countries was over a very valuable natural resource that could bolster both economies… and fill F.O.W.L’s coffers as they took advantage of the resource during a war as well as after, regardless of who won.

“Hey, look at it this way,” Gosalyn said. “You said that Gandra asked you to hang around Fenton for a while, yeah? So maybe if Gandra’s told him more, there’s a chance Fenton might tell you something.”

“Fenton does have a hard time keeping his mouth shut,” Louie added from his line. “All you have to do is get him going at the right time.”

“You’re not giving Fenton enough credit,” Huey said with some uncharacteristic snappishness in defense of his friend and role model. “If he’s not going to talk, he’s not going to talk. And, right now, something’s up with him and he’s most definitely not talking to anyone about anything.”

“So he’s in a bit of a bad mood, it’ll pass,” Louie said easily. “I mean, come on, it’s Fenton for crying out loud, the world’s most easy-going guy ever.”

“I’m inclined to agree with Louie,” Violet added. “Whenever Fenton is upset in this manner, it is rarely for an extended period of time. I believe this to be nothing more than an example of the phrase ‘got up on the wrong side of the bed’.”

“I guess,” Huey admitted. “It’s just weird. Especially that it’s happening right as he’s returning to being Gizmoduck. He’s been really excited for that, so… I don’t know.”

“Maybe he’s hiding something, too?” Dewey suggested.

Lena scoffed. “Yeah, right. We all know Fenton sucks at keeping secrets. How many people know he’s Gizmoduck again?”

“No one in F.O.W.L knows,” Huey practically spat.

Webby cringed, but couldn’t disagree. Or agree, for that fact. Silence spread the distance of a continent and part of an ocean.

They all knew the adults had given them a watered-down version of events about what happened when F.O.W.L kidnapped Gizmoduck. But they had eyes; they could read between the lines. The Gizmoduck armor had to be almost completely rebuilt. Fenton himself hadn’t been in much better condition. Things had been bad. Very, very bad.

“Webs, Gos,” Dewey said softly, breaking the tense silence. “I know this kinda goes without saying, but please don’t get caught.”

For the first time, Webby was starting to really think about what she was risking going after Femme Fatale. As much as she appreciated Gosalyn’s company, as much as she liked having a partner and her friends on her side, she was starting to wish she had gone solo, hadn’t told her friends a thing. Then it would just be herself in danger.

No. No, she couldn’t have done that, either. They would have been worried sick about her. Maybe even angry. They’d definitely be upset if something happened to her.

Well. She just had to make sure that she and Gosalyn came home, safe and sound.

_Even,_ Webby told herself. _If that means pulling back. If it means not learning the truth._

“We’re going to be fine,” Webby insisted. “We’re going to come home.”

And Webby Vanderquack didn’t make promises she couldn’t—wouldn’t—keep.

After signing off with their friends, Gosalyn yawned and stretched. “How much longer do you think it’ll take for us to get to Ireland?”

“We left American soil about three hours ago so… I don’t know,” Webby admitted. “We should probably try to sleep.”

She said that as if she actually thought she could sleep. She couldn’t. She needed to. But she could feel it. Feel herself getting closer and closer to Femme Fatale. Closer to answers. Closer to the truth. Closer to...

Webby’s eyes widened and she put a finger to her beak, telling Gosalyn to remain silent as they heard footsteps nearby.

_Please don’t come any closer,_ Webby thought. _Please don’t…_

But the footsteps got closer. Several pairs of footsteps. Voices, muffled, then a clear, “—should be in one of these crates.”

Webby and Gosalyn barely breathed. Maybe they wouldn’t think to look in this crate. Maybe they’d find whatever it was they were looking for in another right away. Maybe—

Their luck had run out rather early on the mission as a pair of hands lifted the lid of the crate.

Scrooge blinked in surprise down at Webby and Gosalyn. Then anger took over his face. 

“What in the Dismal Downs are you two doing here?” He demanded.

“Webby!” Mrs. Beakley exclaimed as she suddenly appeared behind Scrooge, Drake right behind her, yelling, 

“GOSALYN? WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?”

Webby and Gosalyn exchanged a quick glance and then Gosalyn started wiggling her fingers and saying in a spooky voice,

“ _Oooh_ , we’re not _really_ Webby and Gosalyn, _oooh_ … We are simply _ghosts_ who have taken on the forms of Webby and Gosalyn, _oooh_! Leave us to our ghostly business and forget you ever saw us or be forever cursed, _oooh_!”

Webby pressed a hand to her face, resisting the urge to groan.

Mrs. Beakley, Drake, and Scrooge did not look impressed.

Gosalyn swallowed and lowered her hands, tucking them behind her back, smiling sheepishly. “It was, uh, worth a shot.”

Well. That promise to not get caught didn’t last long.

*****

Dewey crept down towards the garage, moving even quieter when he heard some banging and squawking and grumbling coming from within. He frowned. Launchpad had left hours ago, so who would be in his garage?

Dewey poked his head around the corner and his brow furrowed with confusion.

“Mom? Uncle Donald?” He said, stepping into the garage.

“Hi, sweetie!” Della said with a grunt as she un-taped Donald’s hands from a box.

“Uh, what are you doing?” Dewey asked.

“We’re setting a trap!” Della declared, picking up a roll of packing tape.

“Uh, it looks more like you’re packing up Launchpad’s stuff,” Dewey said, bristling slightly. “Why are you packing up Launchpad’s stuff?”

“Because something keeps _un_ packing Launchpad’s stuff,” Donald explained, holding the box closed. “And we’re going to figure out what!”

“So you’re packing Launchpad’s stuff, as a trap for whatever is unpacking Launchpad’s stuff,” Dewey said slowly, processing. His stomach knotted slightly. “Right. Of course. That’s a good trap. For whatever is doing that. Not that I know anything about that. Why would I know anything about that?”

“Want to help us?” Della asked as she stretched tape over the box.

“Uh, I’m good,” Dewey said. “I, uh, promised Huey I’d help him with some… nerd thing. You know how he is. But, uh, quick question? What exactly do you plan on doing when you capture whatever is doing the unpacking?”

“Haven’t thought that far ahead, probably depends on what it is,” Della said, stepping back and putting her hands on her hips, nodding at her work.

“And what will you do if whatever it is has a perfectly valid reason for breaking into these boxes and doing the unpacking?” Dewey asked. “You, uh, you gonna stop it anyways?”

“Of course,” Donald said, dusting his hands off on his shirt. “Launchpad’s going to move, one way or another. Whatever is doing this is preventing that, but not by much. That’s probably not what its main intention is, but we need to figure out what it is and stop it.”

“Hence the trap,” Della said. “Hey, speaking of traps, has Webby come out of her room yet?”

“Yeah,” Dewey said. “She and Gos went over to the Sabrewings. Webby needed some girl time and to get out of the house for a while. Well, I better run. See you later.”

“Bye!” His mother and uncle called after him.

It was as Dewey’s footsteps faded that something occurred to Donald.

“Did Dewey say why he came down here in the first place?” He asked Della. 

She frowned. “Not that I recall…”

Donald and Della exchanged a long but somewhat sad look.

They had a sneaking suspicion that they knew exactly who the culprit was, and he most definitely wouldn’t be caught by their trap now.

They’d figured out the ‘who’ and the ‘how’. Now the only question that remained was ‘why?’

*****

“I am very disappointed in you girls,” Mrs. Beakley said, her arms folded over her chest as she glared down at Webby and Gosalyn. “What on earth were you thinking?”

“Gosalyn Beatriz Mallard, you are in so much trouble!” Drake declared. “More trouble than you have ever and will ever be in in your life, and believe me, I am very, very certain that this will be the most trouble you will ever be in because there’s no way you can possibly get in more trouble _when you are grounded until you’re ninety_!”

“The minute we land in Dublin, you’re going home,” Mrs. Beakley continued, matching Webby glare for glare.

“Just what the heck were you thinking?” Drake demanded.

“This is the most irresponsible thing that you have ever done,” Mrs. Beakley said. “Stowing away on a high-risk mission, and not only have you put yourself in danger, you also dragged your friend along into it.”

“Whoa, wait!” Gosalyn said, sticking her hands out. “I chose to come along. Webby didn’t ask me to. I made that decision myself. She wanted to go alone and I said I’d go with her. I’m her ride-or-die. So don’t blame Webby for me being here.”

“Trust me, I’m not,” Drake snapped, throwing himself dramatically into a seat across from the girls, rubbing his forehead wearily. He groaned, “Why isn’t there a section in a parenting book for this?”

“I think you know why,” Scrooge answered a bit wryly. He had sat nearby, silently watching as Beakley and Drake did their parental duties, but now stood up and walked over, his hands behind his back. “Now, Beakley, Mr. Mallard, if I may speak on the girls’ behalf?”

“I’m sorry?” Mrs. Beakley snapped, looking none at all sorry and giving Scrooge a glare that suggested he quickly reconsider whatever he was about to say.

“No need to apologize, Twenty-Two,” Scrooge said a bit airily, either not noticing the look he was being given or ignoring it. “I’ve known Webbigail and Gosalyn for quite a while now. They are two of the cleverest, most resourceful, and fast-thinking young ladies I know, and it is a downright pleasure to have them in my acquaintance. I also know that, when these two put their minds to something, not much will get them to deviate from the course they charted. So I ask you both to consider this one question: do you really think they’re going to go back to Duckburg quietly?”

Drake stared at Gosalyn long and hard from across the aisle. She tried to smile sweetly at him, kicking her legs slightly. Drake closed his eyes and heaved a sigh. “No. I don’t believe it for a second.”

Mrs. Beakley, however, refused to look at her granddaughter, instead still glaring at Scrooge. “And just what,” She said icily. “Are you suggesting, McDuck?”

“I’m not suggestin’, I’m stating a fact,” Scrooge said. “Gettin’ caught like this is only one minor hiccup in the lasses’ little mission. You’re not gonna be able to stop them, Twenty-Two. None of us are.”

“No,” Mrs. Beakley said, her tone slow but sharp. “No. F.O.W.L will take care of that for us, if they continue to blunder their way forward.”

“Perhaps,” Scrooge agreed. “They are still young. But they are capable, especially with some gentle-handed guidance.”

“Wait,” Gosalyn said, leaning forward slightly, her brow furrowed as she tilted her head at Scrooge. “Uncle Scrooge, are you saying you _want_ me and Webby to stay?”

“Better to have you with us, working together, than trip over each other later when you do, eventually, catch up to F.O.W.L,” Scrooge said. “And we’ll find and foil F.O.W.L faster together.”

The only sound for a long time was the engines of the plane and then Drake spoke up.

“Same rules apply as when you go on patrol,” He said, pointing a finger at Gosalyn. “You stay close to Launchpad. You run when you’re told to run. You do as you’re told without arguing.”

Gosalyn’s eyes widened. “Keen gear, I can stay?”

“Drake,” Beakley snapped harshly, turning to glare at him.

“McDuck’s got a point, and I know exactly what kind of trouble Gosalyn is capable of finding on her own,” Drake said. “Don’t get me wrong, she’s still going to be grounded for life when she gets back to Duckburg. But if this is how I have to make sure she actually gets back to Duckburg, then that’s how it’s going to have to be.”

“And I see how it is,” Mrs. Beakley snapped, folding her arms over her chest. “I have to be the bad guy now, as the only actual responsible adult who actually does the right thing.”

“I’m not going back.”

Everyone turned to look at Webby, who spoke for the first time since they had been caught. The plane lurched to the side as Launchpad turned to look at her.

“LAUNCHPAD!” Scrooge, Drake and Gosalyn yelled, each grabbing on to something to try and keep somewhat upright.

“Right! Sorry!” Launchpad called, jerking everyone again as he leveled out. “My bad!”

Mrs. Beakley and Webby alone remained unmoved, staring each other down.

“I’m not going back,” Webby said again. “I’m not going back to being that girl who spent her whole life in an empty mansion. I’m not going back to being that girl whose whole life is spent preparing for the worst and never getting to even experience the best. _I’m not going back_.”

Mrs Beakley scowled at her. “You are not seriously threatening to run away from home if you don’t get your way, are you? You are better than that, Webbigail.”

“No,” Webby said calmly, evenly. “I’m not threatening to run away from home. I’m threatening to run _towards_ F.O.W.L. With or without help, I’m going to track down Femme Fatale.” She raised her chin defiantly. The words didn’t have to be spoken. They were clear as day.

_And you can’t stop me._

“Fine,” Mrs. Beakley spat after a long, painful silence. “Fine! If that is how you want to play this game, so be it.” She whirled around to Scrooge and snapped, “Whatever happens on this mission is on your hands, McDuck. Yours and yours alone. I tried to make you all see reason, and I will be absolved of all that happens from here on out.”

Scrooge said nothing, but nodded solemnly.

With that, Mrs. Beakley stormed away. Quietly, without a word, Webby slipped out of her seat and walked off into a different direction.

The coldness in the air had nothing to do with their current altitude.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drake "Darkwing Duck" Mallard: If I had a nickle for every time I was going to invade a F.O.W.L base and my two scariest team members decided that the best time to have an explosive argument related to their interpersonal problems was halfway in the journey to the F.O.W.L base, I'd have two nickles. Which isn't a lot but it's bad that it's happened twice, right?
> 
> Also, fun fact! I spent two weeks in Belfast as part of a study abroad a few years ago, so I have actually seen the Harland and Wolff cranes, Samson and Goliath, in person.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, so, like, fair warning, this is THE most emotionally devastating chapter I have ever written in my entire life. Like, I almost cried writing the end. Have fun with that.

Other than the unexpected addition of the two stowaways, the Sun Chaser landed at Dublin Airport without any problems or delays.

“Why did we land in Dublin when there’s an airport in Belfast?” Gosalyn asked as she buckled in her seat in the rental van that they had procured.

“The Sun Chaser sticks out like a sore thumb,” Mrs. Beakley said bluntly from the driver’s seat. “Landing in Belfast would alert F.O.W.L, and they would most likely bug out before we even found their lair. Even landing in Dublin was risky. No doubt F.O.W.L has eyes here.”

“We agreed that going to England and then ferrying over to Northern Ireland would just take too much time,” Scrooge reminded her as he unfolded a paper map. “‘Specially since F.O.W.L isn’t the only organization we don’t want knowin’ what we’re up to.”

Mrs. Beakley ignored that and drove out of the airport parking lot. Instead, she said to the four back-seat passengers, “You should all try and sleep.”

“Isn’t that the opposite of what you should do when fighting jet lag?” Drake asked.

“Doesn’t matter too much if we’re going to be spending most of our time finding F.O.W.L in the cover of darkness,” Mrs. Beakley said, her voice suddenly tight. “Now it’d be lovely if just _one_ of my instructions were obeyed on this endeavor.”

The backseat got very quiet. Webby pointedly looked out the window, resting her head on the glass.

The drive from the capital of the Republic of Ireland to the capital of Northern Ireland was quiet and uneventful, and they stopped only to pay the tolls. Soon enough, there was the sound of snoring from the backseat.

Scrooge, in the passenger seat, remained awake and alert, occasionally looking in the rearview mirror at Webby. It was only once he was absolutely certain that she was asleep did he speak.

“Ye should tell the girl, Beakley,” Scrooge said softly. “She deserves the truth about her mother.”

Mrs. Beakley’s eyes flashed darkly, turning her head briefly to glare at him. “Oh, yes, for you are such a shining example, a true paragon even, of telling children the devastating truth of what happened to the parents that are mysteriously absent from their lives.”

Scrooge narrowed his eyes. “If ye were hoping to hit a low blow,” He said darkly. “Yer gonna have to aim lower than that, Twenty-Two. I know I made a mistake when it came to the Spear of Selene. I wasn’t alone on that one, either, and Donald admits the same. I am fully aware that it did more harm than good for our family. I also know that my nephews risked life and limb to learn the truth about what happened to Della, something they had the right to know and should have been told at a much earlier age. But I also know the boys well enough to say, without a doubt, that they are more than ready, willing, and able to go through it all again. And, this time, they will do it for Webby. The boys went to great lengths to discover the truth about their mother. Now ask yourself this: how much further, what greater risks, will Webby take to uncover _your_ secrets?”

Mrs. Beakley was silent. Then she said, “What I have to tell her… I don’t know if she will ever be ready to hear. And I… I don’t think I’ll ever be ready to talk about. Even after all this time, it’s still raw. She was my _daughter_. It’s hard, you know, to not see her when I look at Webby.”

“I understand,” Scrooge said. “I understand completely. But Webby is not her mother. For that matter, she’s not you, either. She’s her own person. Her own, very determined person. And she is that. A person. Not some half-formed, semi-sentient being all children are when they’re wee ones. She’s almost thirteen now. She’s growin’ up.”

“I’m aware of that,” Mrs. Beakley said. “But it’d be lovely if she would leave out all the teenage angst that comes with it. You and I both know that’s part of why she’s tagged along on this so-called adventure.”

“Oh, that’s what we’re going to call this then?” Scrooge challenged. “A wee bit of teenage angst? I’ve always known you to call a spade a spade, Twenty-Two. Not this… malarkey. You keep making excuses—blaming Webby for Femme Fatale gettin’ away, this so-called teenage angst and rebellious phase of hers—because you don’t want to face the truth. You don’t want to see what’s right in front of you. And you’re trying to talk in circles because of that. You refuse to admit it. I don’t know who ye are, but this isn’t the Bentina Beakley, the Agent Twenty-Two, that I know. My partner, my trusted confidant, my friend. And, quite frankly, I’m not quite sure I can trust this person when we’re gearin’ up to rush into enemy territory.”

“You can trust me,” Mrs. Beakley told him sharply.

“Then prove it to me, by trusting Webby,” Scrooge implored. “I trust the girl with my life. And she knows that. But, right now, what she needs is to know that you trust her. I know you love her. She knows that, too. I know you’re scared for her. We all know that. But when was the last time you honestly, truly, trusted her?”

Mrs. Beakley simply stared ahead at the road in front of her, her knuckles white on the steering wheel.

Again, Scrooge whispered, “She’s not her mother.”

“I know she’s not,” Mrs. Beakley said softly. “I… I know she’s not.”

From the backseat, Webby kept her eyes closed. It was easier to hold back the tears that way.

*****

Huey and his friends had just gotten on the elevator, and he was about to press the button for the lab floor when suddenly Louie stuck his arm out, triggering the motion sensors in the doors to open.

“Many thanks, good hero-in-training!” Storkules said as he slipped onto the elevator, along with an annoyed looking Penumbra. It was clear to the kids that the demigod and the Moonlander were both off-duty that day, as Storkules was clad in a toga and sandals and Penumbra wore her traditional golden Moonlander attire. That, and Penumbra was carrying a spear, which she most definitely was not allowed to carry while on patrol as a cop (they had all heard about the injustice, prejudice, and narrow-mindedness of the police commission on that one).

“No problem,” Louie said. “The stairs here can kill you.”

Penumbra huffed. “I’d like to see them try. They would fail. Nothing on this pathetic planet can kill me.”

“What floor are you headed to?” Dewey asked, his finger hovering near the elevator buttons.

“Our destiny lies in the lab of the great Gyro of Gearloose!” Storkules declared.

“Destiny sounds a lot like baby-sitting to me,” Penumbra informed him. “Rosa’s lucky there’s at least a good chance of needing to use a proper weapon today.” She said that last with a stroke of the spear in her hands.

“Wait,” Louie said. “Rosa as in Fenton’s mom Rosa?”

“Dost thou knowth another Rosa?” Storkules asked genuinely.

“Nope,” Lena said flatly. “So, let me get this straight: Fenton’s mom asked you two to keep an eye on him today?”

“That about sums it up,” Penumbra said. She narrowed her eyes slightly. “How did you know that?”

“Gandra asked the same from Hubert,” Violet explained. “We have come along as additional support.”

“That is…” Storkules began, but trailed off. Then he shook his head slightly. “I do not know how to interpret this situation.”

“It means that if both Fenton’s mom and his girlfriend have a reason to be concerned about Fenton while he’s Gizmoduck today, there’s a good reason for it,” Dewey said.

“And Fenton apparently being in a crappy mood isn’t helping at all,” Lena added.

“Fenton is more than capable of being Gizmoduck, bad mood or not,” Huey declared, moving to the front of the elevator, his back to the doors. “And, because we all know and trust that capability, we are merely here as moral support. And, come on, _of course_ his mom and girlfriend are going to be worried about him. Honestly, it’d be more surprising if they weren’t worried about Fenton. Which means it’s also our role to assure them that, no matter how valid their concerns are, we are also to reassure them both that everything is fine and under control. So, really, this isn’t about Fenton. We have no need to be worried about Fenton. We just have to worry about Gandra and M’ma and making sure they’re happy. Got it?”

“And what about Gyro?” Louie asked, his eyes on his cellphone, an eyebrow raised at the screen.

Huey frowned. “What about Doctor Gearloose?”

“We’re going to make sure he’s happy and has no cause to be concerned about Fenton, too?” Louie asked right before the elevator doors opened with a ‘ding’.

“Uh, no?” Huey said. “Because he’s not?”

Louie looked up from his phone and said, “Turn around.”

Huey turned and looked into the lab. He blinked. Sitting on top of the table that Fenton—now looking even more irritable than he had that morning—was working at was a small, very familiar gray parrot, swinging his feet back and forth.

“Hi!” Boyd chirped happily, waving at his friends. “Louie, when I told you I was here, I wasn’t expecting to see you so soon!”

Huey blinked again, trying to understand what was happening. “Buh?”

Louie nudged him and made Huey look down at his phone screen, showing a series of text messages between himself and Boyd. Huey vaguely knew that, nine times out of ten, if Louie was texting someone, it was Boyd; he hadn’t quite figured out how their friendship worked, just knew that it was both similar and different from Huey’s own friendship with Boyd. While Huey and Boyd shared many interests, to include being Junior Woodchucks together, Huey wasn’t quite sure what Louie and Boyd had in common other than a few shared experiences.

Still, it was clear to see that they texted with much greater frequency than Huey did with Boyd, and their texts had started much earlier in the day. But the most relevant was the texts that started around the same time Huey and his friends had gotten on the elevator. There, plain to see, was Boyd’s very innocent honesty about where he was and why he was there in the lab at the Money Bin.

Because Gyro had asked Boyd to come. To keep an eye on Fenton. Especially if he had to become Gizmoduck.

Huey swallowed. This really, really, really didn’t bode well…

So, of course, that’s when the alarms started blaring, accompanied by Fenton’s shout of, “Oh, for crying out loud! _Really_?”

Realization hit Huey like a punch to the gut. They were now well past the foreboding period.

*****

If one didn’t look too closely, the group looked like the average tourist family unit. At least Gosalyn acted the part of ‘excited kid on vacation’, swinging around lampposts and taking in the sights and asking questions. She was also quickly filling up the disposable camera that she had bought in the Dublin Airport while Scrooge haggled for a rental car.

“Keen gear, what are those?” Gosalyn asked, pointing up at the large yellow rectangular cranes that greeted them as they entered Titanic Quarter before snapping a photo.

“Shipbuilding cranes,” Mrs. Beakley answered. “Their names are Samson and Goliath. The H and W stand for—”

“Hello and welcome.”

Everyone in the group turned to stare at Webby in confusion. And, in Mrs. Beakley’s case, surprise. Webby didn’t notice this, though. She was staring up at the cranes, her head tilted back some, smiling slightly.

“Well, yes, to a certain extent,” Mrs. Beakley said, sounding a bit flustered. “Really, it stands for Harland and Wolff, the company that owns them.”

“But Belfast natives say that it actually means ‘Hello and welcome’,” Webby said. “They greet everyone in the city.”

“And unfortunately, that includes F.O.W.L,” Drake said. “Any idea where exactly they’d set up a base?”

“I’ve got a few ideas,” Mrs. Beakley said. “But the hunch I feel strongest about is right over there.”

Everyone followed where her finger was pointing to a large, oddly-shaped building that glinted in the low sunlight. It was made of four large structures that were built into trapezoids, so that no matter which side of the building you approached, it looked like the prow of a boat; in the middle was a tall rectangular building full of glass windows, whereas the rest of the building seemed to be made out of metal.

“And what exactly is that?” Scrooge asked.

“Titanic Belfast,” Launchpad answered, reading from the map they had picked up in the lobby of their hotel. “It’s a museum. Says here that it’s the world’s leading tourist attraction.” He looked up from the map and frowned slightly at Mrs. Beakley. “Sounds like the opposite of sneaky spy headquarters.”

“Precisely,” Mrs. Beakley said. “It’s hiding in plain sight. So where better to hide in Belfast than the most visited destination, located beside the city’s most iconic structure?”

“It’d be like putting a base in the Statue of Liberty, or the Great Wall of China,” Drake commented. “Enough people coming and going to blend in, and something so iconic that you wouldn’t even consider it being more than what you saw on face-value.”

“Did we ever figure out where their base in Duckburg was before they bugged out?” Gosalyn asked.

“We know for sure that it wasn’t the Money Bin, and that’s the building everyone who comes to the city knows,” Launchpad said.

“No, those sneaky spies had their way into the Money Bin,” Scrooge groused. “And seats in my boardroom to boot.”

“When was the museum built?” Webby asked. “Does anyone know?”

“Announced in two-thousand five, opened in two-thousand twelve, according to Centipedia,” Gosalyn answered, having searched for information on the building on her cellphone.

“Then it fits what Gandra said about this base being newer,” Webby said. “It would have been built underneath the museum, but during the process of laying the foundation.”

“Not to mention have shadow operatives in the city long before then, putting pieces into place,” Mrs. Beakley agreed. “To include making a rather generous donation to the project, and contract construction workers for their base.”

“If this is their base, then we should split up and try to find the entrance,” Drake said. “How about I take the girls inside the museum, and you three search the outside perimeter and surrounding area?”

Mrs. Beakley frowned. “I am not sure that splitting up in an unfamiliar city is a strong suggestion. Or, at the very least, the teams do not work. None of you would know what to look for, whereas Scrooge and I do.”

“I’ve been in a F.O.W.L base, and Webby knows more than I do about F.O.W.L,” Drake countered. “Plus, I’m in civilian mode, and if F.O.W.L’s got security looking around in the museum, it’ll look to them exactly like what actually we are: a dad taking his daughter and her friend to a museum. They’d pick you and Scrooge out in a heartbeat, and maybe even Launchpad, since they know he’s connected to Scrooge.”

“He’s got a point,” Scrooge said. “And we’d have a better idea of how to go about findin’ an outdoor entrance than them anyway.”

Mrs. Beakley still frowned but nodded in agreement. To the girls—Webby in particular—she said, “No wandering off.”

The two girls nodded. To Drake, Mrs. Beakley said, “Don’t stick on the ground floor. The entrance may be on another level of the museum. We’ll also check the underground parking garage, so don’t worry about that.”

He nodded and ushered the girls towards the museum.

“This place is too cool to be a museum,” Gosalyn said as they walked through the exhibit. They had decided that they would go through the exhibit floors first, then poke around the atrium on the ground floor under the guise of looking for souvenirs and food from the gift shop and cafe.

“I’m not sure if I should be delighted that you’re enjoying a museum and actually learning something, or if I should tell you not to have too much fun, because you’re still in trouble,” Drake said as Gosalyn rushed up to read an information panel. He glanced beside him at Webby. He was starting to get worried about her; she didn’t quite have that spark that he was used to. Webby seemed withdrawn, and focused on her surroundings, but still not necessarily in the moment. “See something out of the ordinary? Something that screams F.O.W.L?”

Webby jolted slightly then looked up at Drake. “Oh. Uh. No. Not yet. Just… thinking.” She looked around the exhibit; they hadn’t reached the part of the museum about the sinking of the Titanic. This exhibit hall featured the ship being prepared for her doomed maiden voyage, the mood still celebratory. “It’s just… sad. You know? Everyone was so happy and excited. It was one big party. They had no idea. Kind of like how we didn’t know. When we were getting ready for the party. Femme Fatale slipped right through our defenses.”

“Are you comparing Femme Fatale to an iceberg?” Drake asked, arching an eyebrow at her.

“I mean, kinda?” Webby said with a shrug. “She hit us so hard and so fast.”

“Our ship hasn’t sunk yet,” Drake told her. Which was especially odd. Webby was the optimistic one. Endearingly so, even in the worst of circumstances. “Is everything okay, Webby?”

Webby didn’t answer right away. Then she asked, “Did Granny tell you what she was doing in Belfast when she was here last time? I know Uncle Scrooge didn’t even know she was here before. But did she say anything, before you guys found us on the plane?”

“No,” Drake answered. He had a feeling Scrooge had tried to weasel that information out of Mrs. Beakley, but ultimately failed.

“I don’t either,” Webby said sadly. “I feel like I don’t know her anymore. And I thought I did. And I... I don’t think she knows me, either. I don’t know how to fix this. I’m not even sure what broke or who did it or how it happened.”

Drake understood then; Femme Fatale hadn’t been the iceberg for their team. She had been a glittering, diamond-clad iceberg that came between Webby and Mrs. Beakley.

The former spy turned housekeeper would be too proud to ask for help or advice. For that matter, it seemed she was ignoring the issue at hand. But Webby’s SOS signal was clear.

Drake placed a hand on Webby’s shoulder. “Your granny is still angry and frustrated—over what happened the other night, and you stowing away. But once she’s cooled down a little, she’ll be in a better place to talk.”

“What if she’s not?” Webby asked. “What if she never talks to me? I meant it. I’ll get the answers from Femme Fatale if Granny won’t tell me herself about my mom. I have a right to know.”

“You do,” Drake agreed. “Trust me, I know you do. But you have every reason in the world to wait and hear your granny out. Femme Fatale hasn’t given you a single reason to trust her version of the story, no matter what that story is.”

Webby sighed but nodded. “You’re right.” As they transitioned into the exhibit hall that showed what it was like on board the sailing Titanic, still full of vibrancy and life, unaware of the tragedy that awaited them, Webby looked around and whispered, “I can wait, but I can’t wait forever. I can’t let myself think that I have time. I can’t let there be a time that it’s too late.”

The only thing Drake could think to say to that was, “I’ll talk to her. See if we can make time.”

Then, and only then, did he begin to see the true Webby as she smiled up at him.

For one brief moment, they were, in fact, a father, a daughter, and a friend in a museum together.

They continued through the museum exhibit halls, but found nothing that pointed them towards F.O.W.L. When they got back to the ground floor, Drake pulled out his wallet and handed Gosalyn several of the pound notes that he’d gotten from an ATM on their way to Titanic Quarter.

“I’m going to call the others to check-in,” Drake said. “You two explore the atrium. Get yourselves a snack or something. Oh, and I promised Honker a souvenir. Pick something out for your cousin, will you?”

“Cool,” Gosalyn said, tucking the notes in her jacket pocket. “Thanks, Dad!”

The two girls ran off and Drake found a quiet corner, pulling out his phone, punching in Launchpad’s number.

“Found something?” Launchpad asked in lieu of greeting.

“Not yet,” Drake answered. “We can’t get onto the top floor because that’s special access, conference rooms and such. We just got through the exhibits so we’re checking the ground floor now. What about you?”

“Mrs. B and Mr. McD are doing a sweep of the parking garage,” Launchpad answered. “They asked me to stay up here, in case you needed to get in contact with someone and the phones don’t work down there. We’ve got some of Gyro’s fancy walkie-talkies to keep in touch without cell service.”

Drake heard something in the background, a beeping followed by a garbled voice. He heard Launchpad’s voice much more clearly as he responded, “I’ve got Drake on the phone now, they’re done with their sweep except for—Okay, I’ll have them meet us out front.”

“LP?” Drake said, trying to get the pilot’s attention. “Everything alright?”

“They found it.”

Three little words were a very big relief.

“We’ll be right out,” Drake told him, hanging up and going to collect Gosalyn and Webby.

They found Launchpad outside, and they were soon joined by Mrs. Beakley and Scrooge, the latter of whom was shaking his head.

“I know Miss Dee said that the agent known as Steelbeak wasn’t the brightest, but to have a vanity plate that has his name on it, on a fancy sports car in F.O.W.L’s colors?” Scrooge sighed. “I’m almost disappointed. Should have been more of a challenge.”

“To be fair, we did spend a considerable amount of time looking elsewhere first,” Mrs. Beakley said. “There’s a hidden door in the wall right in front of where the car is parked.”

“How do we get in?” Launchpad asked.

“We would have to take out the security cameras first, and then attempt to get pass the passcode system,” Mrs. Beakley answered. “Which also appears to have a triple biolock: finger print, retinal scan, and facial recognition.”

“So basically we found the entrance, we just can’t get in, unless we want to blow up the door, which would not only alert F.O.W.L but also get the Belfast cops called on us.” Gosalyn said. “Now what?”

“That may be their main entrance,” Webby said, scratching her chin and tapping her foot as she studied the ground. “But that’s not their only exit.” She put her hands on her fists and looked past the museum, past the Harland and Wolff cranes. “There’s docks for the ferry a little further away. The base can have a tunnel that stretches that far. Get on a boat, go anywhere.”

“What do you want to bet that there’s a boat that is as subtle as Steelbeak’s car?” Drake asked.

“Like a boat that is red and black?” Launchpad asked.

Everyone whirled on him.

“You saw a boat like that?” Mrs. Beakley asked in surprise.

“Sure did,” Launchpad said. “It was one of those fancy looking boats that that Mark Beaks guy is always taking selfies on. Saw it down near that second big Hello and Welcome crane when we were looking for an entrance. But it wasn’t an entrance, and the colors weren’t too weird to point out then. It’s not like it said ‘F.O.W.L’ on it or anything.”

“Did it say anything on it at all, or have any other symbols?” Scrooge asked. “Catch it’s name by any chance?”

“Yeah, come to think of it, it said that it was called the _Emmeline_ ,” Launchpad said, scratching his chin with thought. “Fancy name for a fancy boat.”

Mrs. Beakley scowled. “That’s F.O.W.L’s alright. More specifically, it’s Femme Fatale’s.”

“Emmeline is her real name?” Webby asked. Then her eyes widened. “Oh. She must have been in disguise as Em, one of the people setting up for the party.”

“She really was hiding in plain sight all day that day,” Scrooge said darkly.

“Enough chit chat, let’s go check out the boat!” Gosalyn said.

Sure enough, there was a very large, very fancy yacht on a nearby dock.

“I get the feeling this isn’t usually here,” Drake said, looking around the docks. “Ferries, cruise ships, even some cargo ships. But not something like this.”

“Look!” Webby said, pointing. “There’s people on board.”

Gosalyn pulled out her phone and used the zoom function to get a better look.

“Eggheads,” Scrooge grumbled, narrowing his eyes. “And in broad daylight.”

“Seriously, how did we not find F.O.W.L sooner?” Drake asked. “They’re not good at being subtle.”

“I personally blame the management,” Scrooge said with a sniff.

“They must be preparing to leave Belfast from that boat, and soon,” Gosalyn said.

“This doesn’t make sense. Switzerland is a landlocked country,” Scrooge said. “By air is their most likely way of getting there, and there’s an airport not five miles away. Why would they first depart on a boat?”

“Because whatever they’ve got on that boat, they need to transport to an airstrip where they have to jump through as few hoops as possible,” Mrs. Beakley said. “They may have a base on an island off the coast of Scotland that they use for that purpose.”

“The conference starts the day after tomorrow, so they’re either leaving tonight or early tomorrow morning.” Webby said.

“Which means we have to act fast so we don’t lose them,” Launchpad said.

“Agreed,” Mrs. Beakley said. “Let’s go back to the hotel to regroup and strategize.”

“For tonight,” Drake said, rubbing his hands together slightly. “We get dangerous.”

*****

_There is not enough coffee in the world for this,_ Fenton thought as he got off his stool, marching across the room to where the bag full of Gizmoduck armor was. He wasn’t sure if it was the urgency that usually accompanied the alarms that made the kids—and Storkules and Penumbra, where the heck did they come from? Yes, yes, Ithaquack and the Moon respectively but why were they here?—or the expression on his face that made people practically dive out of his way.

Fenton’s day was not going well. He hadn’t slept well, taking forever to fall asleep only to be plagued with dreams made up of half-formed memories, waking up periodically and lying awake for an hour at a time before he fell into nightmare-laden sleep again, and an inability to find a position comfortable for more than five seconds thanks to the pain in his back. 

The pain that he thought was over, except for the mild twinge every now and again if he overdid it. It hadn’t even hurt when he slammed into the wall the night before, or when he’d freed himself from the magnetized armor. There hadn’t been any sort of pain until his head hit the pillow and insomnia struck the first time. He knew, logically, that his decision to sit on the stool and hunch over his equations wasn’t helping, either, but he hadn’t necessarily been thinking logically when he got to the lab that morning.

Getting in the Gizmoduck armor was the last thing Fenton wanted to do right now. Which, of course, naturally, meant Duckburg had to experience some sort of crisis.

Fenton activated the gauntlet, trying hard not to wince as the metal warped around his flesh. This was normal. Everything was back to normal. He did this all the time, why was now any different?

He frowned at the news report, and at the feeling of someone standing behind him as he crouched on the floor.

Someone was behind him, he left his back unguarded. He was already in pain there, why not go ahead and get stabbed in the back?

_Knock it off,_ he told his brain once his brain registered the red—not the deep, dark, scarlet F.O.W.L red. Lighter and happier; there were much better associations with that red. _It’s just Huey. Huey won’t hurt you, he’s your friend._

On the screen, Roxanne Featherly was reporting on a series of small but violent tornadoes that were ripping through town.

“I can’t fight a tornado,” Fenton said quickly, prepared to shut it off. That was it. This was someone else’s problem. Couldn’t be his. What exactly could Gizmoduck do? Well, maybe he could help in the aftermath, but—

“There’s no way that’s natural phenomenon,” Huey said, interrupting Fenton’s internal thoughts. “The weather isn’t right for it, and that many? Sounds like Dr. Atmoz Fear if you ask me.”

Fenton wasn’t asking, but he didn’t say that. He also wasn’t looking at anyone. Especially not Huey. He couldn’t look at their expectant expressions. The silent wondering of why hadn’t he left yet. The quiet ‘What’s wrong with him?’ Nothing. Nothing was wrong with him. Everything was fine, everything was normal. Well, sure there were tornadoes ripping through Main Street right now and maybe a supervillain responsible for it.

No. Wait. There couldn’t be a villain responsible. No bad guys meant no need for a superhero, right?

“It could be something else,” Fenton argued right as the news camera turned to capture a cackling Dr. Atmoz Fear on top of a nearby building.

Yeah. Fenton couldn’t deny that was him.

Which meant he couldn’t deny that Gizmoduck was needed.

Fenton said nothing as he grabbed his bag and headed for the elevator, ignoring and trying not to care about the exchange of worried looks happening behind him and the forced jovial tone from Storkules as he rallied Penumbra to battle (Totally unnecessary. She was always ready to battle).

Fenton had resigned himself to getting in the suit, to getting into action, to becoming Gizmoduck.

Because being Gizmoduck was normal. This was his life’s strange definition of normal. He _wanted_ normal.

But, blathering blatherskite, there really was not enough coffee in the world for this.

*****

Drake knocked on the door to the room Mrs. Beakley was sharing with the girls. They were currently getting dinner with Launchpad to bring back to the hotel; Scrooge was in his own room, making some phone calls to check in back in Duckburg. Drake had all his Darkwing gear packed and ready to change into once they left the hotel and got closer to the docks. This was his only chance to talk with Mrs. Beakley alone.

She opened the door, arching an eyebrow at him. “Yes, Drake?”

“I was hoping we could talk for a moment,” Drake said, entering the room as she moved to grant him entry.

“Is there some aspect of tonight’s plan that you want to reconsider?” Mrs. Beakley asked.

“No, no, everything we agreed on, it’s going to work, that’s fine,” Drake said. “It’s, uh, well. It’s about you. And Webby.”

Mrs. Beakley’s face darkened. “Did McDuck put you up to this?”

“What?” Drake asked, frowning. “No?”

“Then mind your own business,” Mrs. Beakley snapped. “I’ll handle my relationship with my granddaughter without your interference, thank you.”

Drake straightened and said, “Your granddaughter made it my business when she told me her heart was breaking because you won’t talk to her, and thinks that your relationship with her is broken. And she wants to fix it. But not at the expense of never learning about her parents.”

Mrs. Beakley turned her back on Drake with a huff and strode over to the window, looking out over the city streets.

They were quiet for a moment, and then Drake remembered something else Webby had said. About not knowing what Mrs. Beakley had done when she had been in Belfast before. That Scrooge didn’t know what happened at that time. The expressions on Mrs. Beakley’s face when Gandra said that Femme Fatale was going to Belfast, and when Webby said that the Harland and Wolff cranes also stood for ‘Hello and Welcome’.

Then, quietly, he asked, “What happened the last time you were here?”

Mrs. Beakley didn’t respond.

Drake swallowed and pressed forward. He wondered… “Did you… did you lose someone? The last time you were in Belfast?”

Mrs. Beakley sighed, resting her hand on the glass. “Drake, let me tell you something I learned a long time ago. When you are a spy, you’re prepared to lose people. You expect it. Losing someone you care for is not the hard part of the job. When you’re a spy, you’re trained to expect the worst. And even then, it comes down to luck as to whether or not you survive. But what they don’t teach you is that the hardest part of being a spy is gaining people.”

“Because you don’t want people to get too close?” Drake asked.

Mrs. Beakley turned to him. “Because you know that you will lose them. Someday.”

“Or they’ll lose you.” Drake countered.

“You expect that, too. In fact, you anticipate that more. You hope for it, even. Pray for it, too, if you’re so inclined. You wish for your own death, if that means sparing those you care for.” Mrs. Beakley looked back out the window and said, “You asked if I lost someone the last time I was in Belfast. I didn’t. I did the opposite. And I didn’t just lose them. I failed them.”

Drake took a deep breath and said, “Then don’t lose Webby. Don’t fail her. You may be afraid to lose her, but she’s just as afraid to lose you. And, right now, as much as she wants answers, she wants to make things right with you, too. ”

Mrs. Beakley was quiet, then she said, “I’ll talk to her. When this is all over, I’ll tell her everything. I promise.”

“Don’t promise me that,” Drake said. “Promise her.”

Mrs. Beakley nodded. “I will. As soon as she gets back, I’ll tell her.”

Drake nodded and said, “I’ll leave you alone now.”

As he left the room, he felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He felt more confident. Optimistic, even.

Now, maybe, tonight will go off without a hitch.

*****

Huey rubbed his temples underneath his hat, unable to tear his focus off the news report, replaying the battle he had witnessed in person an hour before.

_Bad, bad, this is bad…_ He thought.

While it was clear that the people in the background of the on-the-scene report of Gizmoduck taking on Dr. Atmoz Fear were ecstatic to see the return on Gizmoduck, they were otherwise oblivious to the frankly erratic movements of the superhero.

Huey couldn’t look away, no matter how much it hurt his heart. Gizmoduck seemed to be operating on a delay, taking several seconds—at most, a full minute plus some, Huey was counting—before acting and reacting. Jerky movements, no witty banter, not even a single pie thrown. On more than one occasion, Storkules or Penumbra had to step in, fill in the gaps Gizmoduck left open.

In the end, the bad guy was defeated and carted off to jail—again—and the people of Duckburg cheered. But those who knew the man in the armor knew that the entire fight had been a disaster.

Sure, Fenton had been out of the suit for three weeks. He hadn’t fought as Gizmoduck in three weeks. But this was unusual behavior, even with factoring that in.

“We’re, like, sure that was actually Fenton out there, right?” Lena said. “And not some sort of clone?”

“Haven’t gotten around to fixing the cloning machine yet,” was Dr. Gearloose’s response, frowning.

“I thought you said that nothing turned up when you ran the tests after the other night,” Gandra said, somewhat accusatory, her eyes flashing darkly as she glared at Gyro.

“The tests say the suit is fine!” Dr. Gearloose snapped at her. “We’ll do it again when he gets back, sort it all out.”

Huey winced at both of their tones of voice. He had set out to soothe their worries about Fenton, and had failed before he even had a chance to get started.

And the fact that Gizmoduck hadn’t returned to the lab yet, having disappeared shortly after Dr. Atmoz Fear was in custody, denying interviews and flying away, was not helping. Worse, no one had been able to get in touch with him, which only heightened the anxiety, especially in Gandra and Gyro, both of whom had also been fielding frantic calls from M’Ma demanding to know if they had heard from Fenton yet. Gyro had brought up the GPS tracker on the suit, which was showing that the Gizmoduck armor—and, hopefully, Fenton with it—was still in the city, but that wasn’t doing much to ease the tension in the room.

Which was why everyone turned and let out a collective sigh of relief when the elevator doors opened and Fenton stepped out, dragging his duffel bag behind him, tossing it aside before going back over to his workstation.

“What the heck, man?” Louie exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air. “You totally ghosted us!”

“Sorry,” Fenton said flatly, not sounding particularly apologetic as he went back to scribbling formulas and numbers in the notebook he had been working in before all hell had broken loose.

“Yes, well, you get to be the one to call your mother and reassure her that you’re actually, you know, alive,” Gryo snapped. “Manny, grab the armor, will you?”

Fenton’s head snapped up, his eyes flashing. “Manny, don’t touch my stuff.”

“It was my invention first,” Gyro argued. “So it’s technically _my_ stuff. Manny, get the armor and bring it over to—”

“I said, leave it alone,” Fenton said, a hint of a growl in his voice.

Manny froze, looking back and forth between Gyro and Fenton. Then he clopped out, “Yeah, I’m staying out of this one.” With that, he raised his forehooves and backed away slowly.

Gryo huffed and closed his eyes, pinching the top of his beak in irritation. “You know what? Fine! I’m not dealing with you when you’re being irrational like this!”

With that, Gyro stormed off, going deeper into the lab, grumbling and whispering darkly under his breath.

“I’ll go check on Dr. Gearloose,” Boyd whispered to Huey before he took off after his inventor.

Huey couldn’t stop staring at Fenton. He didn’t recognize this angry version of his friend. He had seen Fenton angry before, of course. But this was something different, something ugly, something—quite frankly—terrifying. Something had set Fenton off, turning him into someone completely different. Someone who had Fenton’s face and mannerisms, but none of his warmth and easy temperament.

For one brief moment, Huey was struck with a horrified thought. What if Black Heron had done this? What if she was responsible for this anger? What if she did something to Fenton, to the Gizmoduck armor, something that Elise and Dr. Gearloose couldn’t find that was making him act this way. Or maybe it was even Femme Fatale; she had shocked the Gizmoduck armor, and who knew what other sort of traps and tricks she had left behind? This had all started after Femme Fatale had appeared and disappeared. But that didn’t make sense. Did it?

Gandra stepped over towards Fenton, apparently the only one brave enough to get close to him. She stood beside him, arms folded over her chest, her back against his desk, so that she could see his face. Or, at least, she could have, if he had lifted his head.

“Hey,” She said softly. “Where’d you go after you kicked Dr. Fear’s butt?”

“Does it matter?” Fenton asked.

“Well, yeah, kind of,” Gandra said. “Considering you up and disappeared on us without a word. Not cool, Suit.”

“Right, so you’re going to tell me that you don’t actually know where I went, considering I got a notification that someone here at the lab was trying to access my location?”

“Okay, fine,” Gandra said, shrugging. “We know where you went. We don’t know why, though. What’s up? For that matter, what happened? Is there something wrong with the armor? Did it malfunction? Was there—”

She didn’t get to finish as Fenton stuffed his pencil in his notebook and slammed it shut, pushing away from the desk as he snapped, “You know why I disappeared? Because I wanted to be alone for five minutes, without you or anyone else hovering over me. So just leave me alone, understand?”

Huey winced, unsure which was worse: the expression on Fenton’s face, the tone of his voice, the surprise and hurt on Gandra’s face, or that Fenton snatched up the bag with the Gizmoduck armor and stormed out of the lab.

Things were so catastrophically bad, Huey wasn’t sure there were enough words to describe just how bad it was.

Why was there no chapter in the JWG for this?

*****

Femme Fatale opened up the briefcase once more, seeing the gas gun nestled inside, surrounded by the cylinder canisters that she had commissioned Black Heron to make. She smiled, running her finger over the barrel of the gas gun before closing the briefcase and locking it. She handed it to a nearby Egghead.

“Put it in my cabin, and make sure the door is locked,” She ordered. “I want two guards posted outside the door until I retire for the night. Understood?”

The Egghead nodded and took the briefcase, two more Eggheads walking alongside him as he left the base, moving along the throngs of Eggheads that were preparing for departure.

“Why all the extra fuss, Femme?” Steelbeak asked as they walked at a more leisurely pace from the main workspace of the Belfast Base and down the tunnel that would take them to the docks. “S.H.U.S.H doesn’t know about it, and Dorkwing and Twenty-Two are back in the States, boo-hooing about the loss of their favorite toy.”

“One can never be too careful,” Femme Fatale said. “I lost the gas gun once. I’m not going to let it happen again. Darkwing Duck and Agent Twenty-Two can try, but they will fail.”

And, soon, she would make Agent Twenty-Two suffer the ultimate loss.

Femme Fatale would turn Webbigal Vanderquack into the perfect F.O.W.L agent.

*****

Gandra Dee was not a sulker. And she most definitely would never, ever, be in a sulk because she had a fight with her boyfriend.

At least, she was pretty sure she had a fight with her boyfriend. She wasn’t quite sure anymore. All she really knew was that Fenton was angry and it was apparently her fault. She wasn’t even sure if she was more angry or hurt, or if the two blended together somehow. All she knew was that she was ready to raid the kitchen and lock herself in her room for a while and… okay, fine, she was going to sulk for a little while.

Gandra grumbled and growled to herself as she fought with her house-key, though it apparently didn’t even matter as the front door was already unlocked when she finally managed to get the key in the doorknob correctly. She had been too frustrated and in her own head too much to even notice that both Kevin and Raymond’s cars were in the driveway.

Gandra slammed the front door behind her, because—if nothing else—one of the things she hadn’t expected to enjoy after leaving F.O.W.L was the lack of automatic doors. Gandra couldn’t remember the last time she had slammed a door behind her, but boy did that feel good. Cathartic, even. Much more satisfying that storming out of a room only for the door to close behind her on its own with a whoosh.

In fact, she was considering opening the door again, just to slam it again. Again, and again, and again, until she had vented all of her anger—yep, she had come to the conclusion that she was angry at Fenton; if he could be angry at her, she could be angry at him—through the repeated actions.

Gandra whirled around to grab the doorknob to do just that, when she heard behind her, “Gandra?”

She looked over her shoulder and saw Kevin standing there, a carton of ice-cream in his hands. Oh, good. There was ice cream. That would taste even better once she had slammed the door a dozen more times. Maybe two dozen, at this point. It seemed that now that she had fully recognized she was angry, her anger was intensifying.

“Yeah?” Gandra said, a bit snappishly. “What?”

“Will you please come to the kitchen?” Kevin asked.

Gandra released her grip on the doorknob. “Why?”

Kevin didn’t answer, just beckoned her to follow him.

Gandra huffed and entered the kitchen. To her surprise, Raymond was sitting at the table there, a pot of tea and three cups waiting. There were also bowls and spoons on the table, along with a bottle of chocolate syrup, and Gandra started to understand why Kevin was holding an ice-cream carton. Strawberry, she now saw as he set it on the table. Her favorite, when covered with chocolate syrup…

“Violet and Lena informed us of what happened this afternoon,” Raymond said as Gandra took a seat at the table. “And we were not certain if you would require tea or ice cream upon returning home, so we ensured that you had easy access to both.”

Gandra took a deep breath and said, “Both. Definitely both.”

At that, Raymond picked up the tea pot and poured her a cup of tea, while Kevin dished her up a bowl of ice cream. Once both were in front of her, Kevin asked, “Would you like to discuss what happened?”

“What, Vi and Lena didn’t fill you in on all the juicy details?” Gandra asked as she grabbed the chocolate syrup bottle.

“To be frank, they told us that you and Mr. Crackshell-Cabrera had a… disagreement. However, both admitted that they were not quite certain what the disagreement was about in the first place.” Raymond said.

Gandra sighed and swiped her finger over the drop of chocolate syrup that was running down the side of the bottle, quickly licking it off her finger before saying, “Well, that make three of us. I don’t quite know why he’s mad at me. It just… it just happened. I asked Fenton about what happened this afternoon. I thought there was something wrong with the suit, and he was acting weird and… then all of a sudden he’s yelling at me that I’m hovering or whatever.”

“That is rather unusual behavior from him,” Kevin said.

“And it’s slander!” Gandra declared, forcing her spoon into her ice cream. “I was totally not hovering! I gave him his space, even when he was arrived at work this morning, clearly in pain and tired and miserable and not wanting to talk! I stayed back when he went to go fight bad guys! I even asked Huey to keep an eye on him for me!”

Then Gandra froze, hearing the words that came out of her mouth. She didn’t need to see that Kevin and Raymond were each arching an eyebrow at her in perfect unison to make the realization. She put her head in her hands and groaned. “And in doing so, I totally hovered. I screwed up, didn’t I?”

“From what I have gathered, you are not the only one who can be accused of ‘hovering’ over Fenton today,” Raymond said. “My understanding is that Rosa and Dr. Gearloose have had their roles to play as well.”

That didn’t do anything to make Gandra feel better. She slid down in her chair, pushing aside the bowl of ice cream. She didn’t deserve ice cream. “I’m a terrible girlfriend.”

“No, you are not,” Kevin countered, pushing the ice cream back at her. “You acted out of concern and love. So did Rosa and, in his own way, Dr. Gearloose. Even the children, Storkules, and Penumbra did, by following the requests made of them.”

“Then why do I feel like it was a crappy decision?” Gandra asked, reaching up to play with the spoon in her bowl, scooping up a bite of ice cream, then tipping it over so it fell off the spoon and back into the bowl.

“It was not a bad decision, necessarily,” Kevin said.

“Yeah, well, Fenton’s pissed at me, so it obviously was one,” Gandra argued.

“No,” Raymond said, shaking his head. “Gandra, whatever has angered Fenton, it has nothing to do with you. Or Rosa, or Dr. Gearloose, or anyone else. After all, you said that Fenton was already in a peeved state of being when you first saw him this morning. Was he in a similar state when you saw him last?”

“No,” Gandra said, starting to sit up some. “So, are you saying, you don’t think he’s actually angry at me?”

“I think you ended up becoming a victim of emotions he feels towards something else, but cannot otherwise direct his anger at,” Raymond said.

Gandra took a bite of her ice cream, thinking. “I just happened to push him too far, when I started asking him questions when he didn’t want to talk then.”

“That seems an apt summary of the situation,” Kevin said.

“Then, should I apologize?” Gandra asked, her brow furrowing.

“No,” Kevin and Raymond both said at the same time, sternness in their voice.

“Fenton should be apologizing to you,” Kevin said. “Not the other way around. You tried to engage him and get him to discuss what was bothering him, even before you asked Huey and the other children to assist you in monitoring the situation. The former was the appropriate step to take, the latter a little more questionable.”

“So now what? I just wait until he cools down enough to talk to me and tell me what’s bugging him?” Gandra asked, sipping her tea.

“Unfortunately, that does seem to be the next best step,” Raymond said. “Both for yourself and for Fenton. He needs the time to think and process. You need to protect yourself emotionally. Neither of you are in a mental place to have a meaningful conversation. We know you want to help Fenton, and that you care deeply for him and his well-being. For the time being, you need to take care of yourself and your well-being.”

“And we know that Fenton cares deeply for you, which is another reason why, for now, he will stay away. I highly doubt he intended to hurt your feelings, that he lashed out while he is hurting himself, but he will not want to further cause you distress,” Kevin added.

Gandra’s shoulders slumped. “What am I supposed to do in the meantime?”

Violet poked her head out from underneath the table, saying, “Perhaps by doing further hacking into F.O.W.L’s database utilizing Steelbeak’s access?”

“How long have you girls been under there, eavesdropping?” Raymond asked as Lena also emerged from under the table.

“Long enough to agree with you that Fenton acted like a jerk, and that he should be on his knees groveling for Gandra’s forgiveness,” Lena said, going into the fridge to pull out the ice cream, pulling off the lid while Violet grabbed two spoons from the drawer. “But he’s also super crazy about you, Gandra. So whatever’s bugging him is really freaking him out, if he’s acting like this.”

Gandra smiled sadly and ate a bite of ice cream. “Well, right now, hacking F.O.W.L is easier than hacking Fenton’s brain, so I’m game. Does this have anything to do with why Huey was asking me about Femme Fatale and Steelbeak earlier? And, yes, I know that Webby and Gosalyn snuck on board the Sun Chaser.”

“Oh, uh, you do?” Lena said awkwardly. Then she winced and said, “I mean, they did _what_? That’s crazy, we totally knew nothing about that.”

“Lovely attempt,” Kevin said dryly, implying that it was the exact opposite.

“Then, yes, it does have to do with the information Hubert attempted to extract from you earlier,” Violet said to Gandra, continuing to eat ice cream from the carton. “Emphasis on ‘attempted’.”

“I told him to reconsider learning more about F.O.W.L. Now I know why he did, and I still don’t recommend it, but I’ll help you out,” Gandra said. “Hopefully, it’ll be enough. Let me grab my laptop. See what my bug has found out about Femme Fatale via Steelbeak since last night.”

Gandra’s laptop was found, and the five of them gathered around her to see what information she could pull. There was only one thing, a recording of a video call made sometime in the night between Femme Fatale and Steelbeak.

Gandra turned up the volume and hit play.

*****

“There’s one,” Launchpad whispered, pointing as the Eggheads began to emerge under the cover of darkness, heading onto the _Emmeline_. They stood on top of a nearby building, watching and waiting; the ship had been empty, save for a few crew members. They hadn’t spotted any Eggheads since they arrived, but it was clear that the crew was gearing up for an arrival.

“More than one,” Mrs. Beakley observed as two more quickly followed. “Two more.”

“They’re guarding something the one in the middle has,” Darkwing said, peering through his binoculars. “I’ll bet that’s got the gas gun in it.”

Scrooge nodded. “Webby, Gosalyn, are you ready to go aboard and retrieve that briefcase?”

“Born ready, Uncle Scrooge!” Gosalyn said and Webby nodded, a look of fierce determination on her face.

“We’ll cause a distraction as soon as we see Femme Fatale and Steelbeak,” Scrooge continued, needlessly reminding them of the plan.

“And we’re in luck, because there they are,” Mrs. Beakley said, pointing at the large rooster dressed in a white suit and a beak that glinted in the light off the deck of the boat, turning to offer a hand to a woman in a pale green dress with a dark blue coat overtop.

Femme Fatale.

“Alright then,” Darkwing said, grinning. “Let’s get dangerous.”

***** 

Femme Fatale smiled as she breathed in the sea air. Her boat was ready, her crew was ready, her Eggheads were ready. Everything was perfect.

She only wished she could have stayed in Belfast a little longer.

Femme Fatale turned to get a final on-shore look at her beloved Harland and Wolff cranes when she caught the movement of a shadow.

She frowned. No, that couldn’t have been a shadow. It couldn’t be…

Femme Fatale turned around right as a cloud of purple smoke appeared.

“I am the terror that flaps in the night! I am the iceberg that sinks evil’s ship! I am—!”

“Darkwing Duck,” Femme Fatale sneered as the smoke cleared, not only revealing the caped hero, but Scrooge McDuck, his pilot, and…

Agent Twenty-Two, her eyes full of fury as she locked gazes with Femme Fatale.

Femme Fatale’s shoulders went back.

She had a feeling that, this time, taking down the formidable agent wouldn’t be so easy.

Good.

*****

Webby ignored her cellphone buzzing against her hip, entirely focused on getting to the ship without being seen. Eventually, the buzzing stopped.

Then Gosalyn’s phone began to vibrate. Gosalyn, at least, answered it, whispering, “Lena, not a good—What? You need to—Hang on. Webs?”

“What?” Webby whispered.

“It’s for you,” Gosalyn whispered back, handing Webby her phone. “It’s Lena and Violet. They say it’s urgent.”

Webby accepted the phone, pressing it to her ear. “This really isn’t—”

“Pink, you need to get out of there, now!” Lena said in a rush, panic in her voice.

“You need to get as far away from Femme Fatale as possible,” Violet added, her voice calmer, but not by much.

“No! We’re too close!” Webby argued. “I’ve literally got eyes on her and the gas gun, we’re going in now.”

“Give me that,” Said a muffled voice on the other end and then the voice was clearer. “Webby, it’s Gandra. You need to get out of there. We found out something, about Femme Fatale and your… well, we found out something about your mom.”

What Gandra said next chilled Webby to her core.

And then she was full of red hot fury.

Her face blank, her mind blank, Webby hit the ‘end call’ button.

“Webby?” Gosalyn whispered. “What did she—?”

Webby shoved Gosalyn’s phone back at her.

And then, to Gosalyn’s horror, Webby turned and rushed straight towards the fight.

***** 

Steelbeak charged first, rushing head-on towards Darkwing Duck, fists flying. The Eggheads began to spill out of the dock exit, and started to get into the fray.

The next moments were a cacophony of chaos, fists flying, Eggheads trying to shoot the invaders, and Mrs. Beakley found herself in a particularly heated battle with Femme Fatale.

“Should have known you’d want a do-over, Twenty-Two,” Femme Fatale sneered as she and Mrs. Beakley dueled. “Honestly, I’m happy to have it. It’ll be so much fun to tell everyone that I defeated the brilliant, indomitable Agent Twenty-Two twice in one week. I’m particularly going to enjoy lording that over Black Heron, so thank you for that.”

“Sorry to disappoint you then,” Mrs. Beakley said. “For this will not be a best-two-out-of-three scenario!”

Mrs. Beakley threw Femme Fatale back, the younger woman landing on her feet. Then, before she could move, out of nowhere, Femme Fatale stumbled forward, a small webbed foot having propelled her.

“What are you doing, lass?” Scrooge demanded, his eyes wide when he caught sight of Webby. “This wasn’t the plan!”

“Webby, get back!” Mrs. Beakley ordered.

Femme Fatale’s eyes flashed as she turned around to face Webby. “You’ve been holding out on me, little one. Why, if I had known this is what you’re capable of—” She didn’t finish her sentence, Webby once again attacking. Viciously, full of fire and fury.

“Femme!” Steelbeak exclaimed, then he scowled, pointing as he ordered, “Eggheads, don’t just stand there! Get ‘em!”

Darkwing made a grab at Webby, trying to hold her back in her assault on Femme Fatale, now on the ground and trying to push herself up, holding one arm protectively to her chest from where Webby had struck.

“Let me go!” Webby screeched, fighting her way out of Darkwing’s grip. “Let me go!”

“Absolutely—” He started to say, but let out an ‘oof’ as the wind was knocked out of him, Webby freeing herself and rushing forward to attack Femme Fatale. Darkwing didn’t even have a chance to get his breath back before he was surrounded by Eggheads, two of whom tackled him to the ground. From where he lay, he saw that his companions weren’t faring much better: Scrooge and Launchpad had both taken stun blasts and hit the ground, Gosalyn had been easily grabbed and was kicking and screaming in the grasp of an Egghead, and Mrs. Beakley was trying and failing to fight off the Eggheads that never seemed to stop coming. 

Mrs. Beakley didn’t stop but turned to acknowledge the sound of the cocking of a pistol. She threw an Egghead off—there was the sound of a yelp and a splash as he landed in the water—and turned to look at Steelbeak, who had the gun pointed at her. Mrs. Beakley snarled, and simply grabbed another Egghead, spun, and sent the poor, unsuspecting henchman flying into two of his comrades.

Mrs. Beakley simply arched an eyebrow at Steelbeak, daring him to pull the trigger.

Instead, he swung his arm around and pointed the gun at Webby’s unprotected back.

Mrs. Beakley froze, then heaved a sigh, putting her hands up in surrender.

Webby grabbed the barely-standing Femme Fatale and forced her to the ground again, pinning her there.

“You killed her!” Webby screamed, grabbing Femme Fatale by the front of her jacket, tears dripping from the girl’s eyes as she got in the F.O.W.L agent’s face. “You killed my mother!”

Femme Fatale merely blinked. For a brief second, she looked surprised.

And then, to Webby’s further ire, she started to laugh.

“Oh, Twenty-Two,” Femme Fatale said, sounding thoroughly delighted as she looked over as Mrs. Beakley was being cuffed by several Eggheads. “You really didn’t tell her, did you? This explains so much.”

“Stop laughing!” Webby yelled, shaking the woman slightly. “You said I fight like my mother, and you know I fight like her because _you killed her_!”

“Webby, let her go, now!” Mrs. Beakley demanded, voice frantic. “Just back away!”

“It’s too late now, Twenty-Two. You had your chance to tell her.” Femme Fatale said. Then Webby froze as Femme Fatale’s hand came up to gently caress Webby’s face, fingers brushing back the girl’s hair. “Oh, Webbigail. My darling, sweet, precious, naïve Webbigail. I didn’t _kill_ your mother.

“I _am_ your mother.”

Webby’s eyes went wide, staring down at Femme Fatale. Her fingers released the woman, her hands shaking. 

“No. You’re lying,” Webby whispered. Frantically, she turned, looking for her grandmother. Her entire body trembling, her voice quivering, Webby said, “Granny, tell me she’s lying! Please!”

“Go on, Twenty-Two,” Femme Fatale said from where she lay on the ground, her smile now lazy. “Deny it. Say it isn’t so. What’s one more lie if it means keeping her happy and blissfully unaware of the truth?”

“It’s not true!” Webby insisted, pleaded, shaking her head, watching her grandmother’s blank expression. “It can’t be true!”

Mrs. Beakley closed her eyes and sighed.

Tears once again spilled from Webby’s eyes as she whimpered, “Granny…”

“Sorry, baby girl,” Femme Fatale crooned, using her hand to direct Webby’s face back towards hers. The smile she gave Webby was unexpectedly soft as she said, “But it’s about time you learned the hard way that you don’t get to pick your family. Night night, sweetheart.”

Behind Webby’s jaw, Femme Fatale curled her fingers. Webby felt a quick, sudden prick of pain.

And then everything went black.


	5. Chapter 5

Steelbeak wasn’t used to being in charge. He was never and would never be the brains behind an operation. He was big enough of a man to admit that. And, honestly, he was okay with that. Most of the time. There were perks to being the muscle.

Like not having to think fast when the tension was so thick, you could cut it with a knife.

The prisoners were locked away in the brig, they were on their way to their island off the coast of Scotland—the first leg in their journey to Switzerland—and everyone was accounted for, some a little soggier and worse for wear than others, but everyone was on the boat who needed to be on the boat. So far, all was going to plan. Well, except for the part where they had prisoners, that is, and the small delay it caused.

Femme Fatale was being tended to, seated on a plush sofa with a first aid kit spread out beside her, an Egghead nervously watching her as she tended the Honey Pot’s injuries. Steelbeak had never known Femme to take a punch, let alone get injured. And now she was covered with bruises, had a dislocated elbow, and was bleeding from scratches on her hands and legs from where she hit the cement and debris back on the docks. He’d also realized that she had been wearing more make-up than usual around her beak, and that it seemed to be smeared off, revealing a nasty bruise that was just a bit older. Steelbeak was pretty sure where that one had come from, too. 

All from the kid.

 _Her_ kid. 

Maybe?

No. No, the kid can’t actually be Femme’s kid. That was ridiculous.

Right?

That doubt was the source of the tension. All of the Eggheads were watching Femme Fatale warily, questioningly. Wondering. And there he was, standing in the ballroom on the yacht, in front of all the Eggheads and Femme Fatale, and suddenly he was in charge and expected to handle the situation.

This was supposed to be Femme up here; she was the one supposed to be giving out new orders, deploying Eggheads to their new assignments, going over the plan, while Steelbeak stood behind her looking menacing and flexing his biceps. She hadn’t asked him to take over, but it was clear that she wasn’t in a good place to be the boss at the moment; she looked like she was barely able to keep herself upright, sitting stiffly on the couch. 

No, it was all on him to get it right, to ensure that this job got done.

And, most of all, he had to get Femme taken care of. Not just physically. He had to stop the whispers before they started.

Steelbeak clapped his hands together, commanding attention. “Well, you knuckleheads all did surprisingly well tonight. Be proud; you took on Scrooge McDuck, Darkwing Duck, _and_ the infamous Agent Twenty-Two and lived to tell the tale. Of course, you owe all of that to Femme Fatale and her quick thinking back there. That little wild card of Twenty-Two’s could have cost us, if Femme Fatale hadn’t come up with that story then and there to distract the kid.”

“So…” One Egghead said slowly, cautiously. “That was a lie? That Femme Fatale is the kid’s mom?”

“Of course it was, you dolt,” Steelbeak snapped, channeling his inner Black Heron. Huh, maybe this was why she called him stupid all the time; it gave one a bit of a feeling of superiority. “Classic move, but advanced technique to pull off. The truth is that Femme Fatale did kill the kid’s real mother. You told me so yourself, didn’t’cha, Femme?”

“I did,” Femme Fatale said softly, wincing as she stretched out her hand on her injured arm, testing it. “I told you that, and I did that. I killed her years ago. She deserved it, too. Filthy S.H.U.S.H underling that she was.”

“So why did you say that you’re her mother?” Another Egghead asked.

Steelbeak moved quickly, smacking the questioning Egghead on the back of the head so hard and so fast that he hit the floor. “Quit acting stupid,” He spat. “The truth clearly angered the kid, made her unstable. That made her dangerous to us. I mean, seriously, look at Femme Fatale! No offense, Femme, but there’s not enough make-up in the world to cover up the number she did on you. I didn’t see any of you rushing to take her on; can’t say I blame you there. But one little fib broke the kid into teeny-tiny pieces. Taking her down was like putting a hot knife through butter. It caught her off guard. It made her vulnerable. It destroyed the most powerful weapon in the world. And Femme Fatale did that with one little lie.”

“But Twenty-Two didn’t—” Another started to say.

“Didn’t confirm it, didn’t deny it,” Steelbeak cut him off. “Did you hear her say anything? Huh? Did you? Because I sure didn’t. Anyone else hear differently?”

None of the Eggheads spoke. No, they hadn’t heard Twenty-Two verbally confirm nor deny Femme Fatale’s story.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Steelbeak said sharply. “And if I hear anyone saying anything but the truth, trying to belittle Femme Fatale’s impressive defeat of the kid, let’s just say there’s going to be some scrambled eggs around here. Understood? Good. Dismissed.”

The Eggheads began to disperse, the last one remaining being the one who was patching up Femme Fatale, who was waved away.

“This is fine,” She told the Egghead. “I just need to rest now. Steelbeak will see me to my cabin. Won’t you, Steely?”

Steelbeak blinked in surprise, then went over to her side, offering her his arm to rise to her feet. Wincing slightly, Femme Fatale rose to her feet.

“You okay?” Steelbeak asked as they walked down the halls to her cabin; unlike most bases or transports, with rooming assignments that rotated, this one was truly hers. If any other F.O.W.L member used the boat, they didn’t touch her cabin. Not even the directors were allowed to use the largest, most luxurious cabin on the yacht.

“Stiff, a little sore,” Femme Fatale admitted. “The kid aggravated an old injury in my arm. Knocked the wind out of me, mostly.”

“You going to be okay for Switzerland?” Steelbeak asked. “Or do I need to call the directors for back up?”

“I’ll be fine, I just need some sleep,” Femme Fatale said as she opened the door to her cabin. She stood outside the door for a moment. She seemed shaky, her knees about to buckle. “Help me to the bed?”

Steelbeak nodded and led her inside, closing the door behind them with his foot. He led Femme Fatale to the bed, and she sank down with a sigh.

“Need anything?” Steelbeak asked. “You got some painkillers, right?”

“I’m fine,” Femme Fatale said, not looking at him. “I… I asked you to take me here, not because I actually needed the help. But because you deserve to know.”

“Know what?” Steelbeak asked.

Femme Fatale looked up and she sighed. “The truth,” She said simply. Then she patted the bed beside her, encouraging Steelbeak to sit down. “Might as well get comfortable. It’s a long story.”

*****

“—you lily-livered stooges! Get your butts back in here so I can cream you!”

“Gos, the effort is appreciated but I don’t think that’s going to send them running back in here to let us out any time soon.”

Mrs. Beakley jerked awake with a gasp, blinking rapidly, willing her eyes to adjust to the dark, only partially illuminated by a dark red light. She was on her feet instantly, crossing the short distance of her prison cell, with the clear, almost plastic-like walls. Immediately, she could see her companions, Gosalyn banging against the wall that served as the door to her cell and shouting insults at their captors, Darkwing standing in front of his own cell and tapping a foot, Scrooge grumbling and pacing around his cell, and Launchpad also just starting to sit up, a hand to his head and groaning slightly.

And Webby…

“Webby!” Mrs. Beakley called out, seeing her lying on her side on the cell directly across from her, curled up in a ball, her face averted from everyone else.

She did not respond.

“Webby!” Mrs. Beakley called again, louder, more desperate.

Gosalyn stopped banging, Scrooge stopped grumbling, Darkwing’s foot stilled, all silently waiting and listening.

Then, quietly, there was a whisper, “Please tell me she was lying.”

Mrs. Beakley sighed and rested her forehead on the glass. She was relieved, because Webby was alive and responsive.

And she was resigned. She had put this off for too long.

“I’m so sorry, Webby,” Mrs. Beakley said. “Femme Fatale… Emmeline… she told you the truth. She is, in fact, your mother. And my… and my daughter.”

The silence spread through the hall of cells again, suddenly chilly and far too sterile.

Mrs. Beakley closed her eyes, then said, “I should have told you sooner. I shouldn’t have hidden the truth from you. I thought I was doing the right thing, for you and for me. But I was only lying to myself. Please, Webby, will you let me tell you the whole story?”

There was more silence. Then, slowly, Webby got off the ground, pushing herself to her feet and coming to the front of her cell. She then sat down on the ground, folding her legs in front of her. Her eyes shone with tears, but she was ready to listen.

She had been ready for a long time. Longer than Mrs. Beakley had officially acknowledged, deluding herself into pretending she wasn’t.

Mrs. Beakley took a deep breath.

“The year was 1987. S.H.U.S.H had learned that there were F.O.W.L operatives working in Belfast. It was at the height of Northern Ireland’s Troubles, and chaos reigned. F.O.W.L would gladly take advantage of that to use to further their agenda and take control of the region. S.H.U.S.H assigned me for the job, and sent me with a different partner than usual. They asked Agent One-Twenty-Two, also known as Albert Vanderquack, to accompany me. 

“Albert was a scientist for S.H.U.S.H; an inventor, not a field agent. However, he had connections to the city, which made him valuable for this assignment. He had been born and raised there, and knew the city and many of its people.”

Mrs. Beakley was quiet for a moment, lost in a memory.

_Standing on the deck of the boat with Albert as they approached Belfast. The two large yellow cranes getting closer and closer until finally they could make out the black ‘H & W’. How Albert had smiled and turned to her and said three little words, words that still tugged at her heartstrings after all these years._

_Hello and Welcome._

*****

“Dad’s the one who told me about the cranes standing for Hello and Welcome, you know,” Femme Fatale said, a sad smile on her face as she stared into space. “The ones near the base? It was the first thing that my great-grandfather saw when he arrived in Belfast, immigrating from Germany between World War I and World War II. My great-grandmother’s family had always lived in Belfast; she’s the one who told my great-grandfather that H and W stood for Hello and Welcome, the first time they spoke. He said it explained a lot. Why it felt like he was coming home. So, after they were married, great-grandma would always greet great-grandpa with ‘Hello and welcome’ when he got home from work. And it passed down to their children, and their grandchildren. ‘Hello and welcome’ when I got home from school. ‘Hello and welcome’ when Twenty-Two returned from wherever she had just been in the world.”

She closed her eyes.

 _Hello and welcome_ , the first words she whispered with tears of joy in her eyes as she smiled at her bright-eyed baby girl as she emerged from her egg.

*****

“We posed as a married couple, sharing an apartment during our assignment,” Mrs. Beakely continued. “Albert and I, well, we grew fond of each other. Soon, our relationship and feelings for each other didn’t feel forced or fake. We were devoted to our mission. And, by the end, we were also devoted to each other.”

*****

“The mission was, of course, a success. Anything else wouldn’t do for Agent Twenty-Two. And by the time they got back to S.H.U.S.H’s home base in London, Dad and Twenty-Two had figured out they were expecting a little bundle of joy,” Femme Fatale—the bundle of joy in question—said with a bit of a sneer. “They never married, you know. Don’t know if S.H.U.S.H didn’t allow it or just didn’t think to do it or if they thought it was safer. Yet they were disgustingly in love for the rest of Dad’s life. Or, at least, he was. Twenty-Two wasn’t big on showing emotions, as you might have guessed.”

*****

“Albert and I worked out an arrangement,” Mrs. Beakley said. “He would raise Emmeline in London, working from home until she reached an age she could attend school, while I continued field work. I’d visit whenever I could, but we thought that it would be safer if I didn’t live with them during those times I was in the city. We didn’t want anyone to connect Emmeline to me. Only a few members of S.H.U.S.H were even aware that Emmeline was my daughter, Ludwig von Drake and Scrooge for example. Albert maintained that Emmeline was a foundling egg he had chosen to adopt, a charade we kept up until Emmeline was about your age, Webby.”

*****

“Of course, I knew she was my mother. Dad and Twenty-Two made sure of that,” Femme Fatale said, having settled back on her pillows, her hands on her stomach. She really should have been sleeping instead of talking. But she had started and she wouldn’t stop. Not because Steelbeak sat at her feet with rapt attention, but because she had kept her story secret for so long. “And I knew that she was a spy, and that Dad did things for the same organization. They were open and honest with me. They trusted me with their secrets, instilled the importance of keeping that secret. I was so proud of myself, for having such an important secret, keeping it well guarded. Sometimes, though, I wish they hadn’t told me. I couldn’t invite friends over to play. I couldn’t say what my father did when they talked about careers at school. I had to ignore the whispers from the other mothers when my father came alone to the school events. I had to bite my tongue when I was taunted that not even my own mother wanted me and couldn’t stick around. 

“As much as I loved my parents, I resented both of them, just a little bit. Especially when I hit those angsty teenage years. I resented Twenty-Two, for not always being around, for having to struggle to get the tiniest shard of her attention when there were always bigger and better things that called to her, some assignment here or there, some dignitary that needed to be protected or whatever. I was perhaps a little harder on Dad than I should have been; he was the one who had to be the one to tell me no, deny me things that I wanted to do because of his job and Twenty-Two’s, because it was ultimately his job to keep me safe. And perhaps I took advantage of that, because when he could tell me ‘yes’, he never hesitated. And he said ‘yes’ a lot, to make up for when he had to tell me ‘no’.”

She was quiet for a moment, only a brief moment, then she said, “But, sometimes, I wish they had lied to me. Maybe then I wouldn’t have dreamt that, some day, I could be a spy. Just like my Mum.”

*****

“Emmeline desperately wanted to be a spy when she grew older,” Mrs. Beakley said. “And I indulged her. Albert indulged her. We taught her the tools and tricks of the trade, taught her in weaponry and gave her gear to practice with. We encouraged her. We wanted to see her succeed. When she was twelve, we decided to make her identity known to the rest of S.H.U.S.H, so that she could formally begin her training. She thrived, excelled, took every challenge given to her and conquered it with ease. She was brilliant. She was the shining star, and everyone knew she was going to be the next great agent.”

*****

“But I would never be greater than my mother,” Femme Fatale spat bitterly. “Everyone made certain I knew that. I was always being compared to her. I was always being told that, someday, I might have been equal to her. But I would always just be Twenty-Two’s daughter. I was expected to be just as good as she was. Destined for greatness, but never to exceed the standard my mother had set. Everything I did would have been above and beyond for any other trainee. For me, it was what was expected of me. It was always the minimum, and there was no way to go any further. Not if you were me.”

*****

“Emmeline has always been beautiful, especially when she grew into a young woman,” Mrs. Beakley said. “When it came time for her to be recruited to a specific division of S.H.U.S.H at the end of her training, she was selected for the Femme Fatale Division. This assignment made her angry.”

*****

“I was furious,” Femme Fatale said, her voice deadly calm as she spoke of her past anger. “I was hurt and heartbroken. I wanted the gritty assignments. I wanted to get my hands dirty. There were no bombs to be defused, no assassins to tussle with, no glory. There was no way I could live up to my mother’s legacy that way, and definitely not a way to achieve more. I was essentially told that all I was good for was to be pretty and to be useful while pretty. And my mother? What did she have to say about it?”

*****

“I tried to assure her that it would just be for a short period of time. That she needed to get some field work under her belt first, pay her dues, as it were, as a junior agent before she could request a transfer. It ended up causing a rift between us, as she accused me of not believing in her, that I didn’t think she was good enough to do what I did as a spy, that I was trying to protect her.” Mrs. Beakley was quiet. “While she was wrong about my intentions, she had every right and reason to believe what she did. I was the director at the time. I approved of the request to have her be placed in the Femme Fatale division. Even then, I couldn’t show favoritism. Every division had to put in their selections and defend their selections for approval from me and the other S.H.U.S.H executives. I made the approval unanimous.

“But Emmeline did what she was assigned to do, and she excelled. She was given more and more assignments. After a while, the anger was gone. I thought she had accepted her division, that she had found purpose in it, or at least accepted that she needed to bide her time before requesting a transfer.”  
*****

“If I was going to be a Femme Fatale, I was going to be the best damn Femme Fatale S.H.U.S.H had ever seen,” Femme Fatale said. “And I was. I was the most successful agent in my field. I still felt overlooked and underestimated, but I was brilliant and I knew it. S.H.U.S.H knew it. My mother knew it. That was all that mattered. For the longest time, that was all that mattered. I fooled everyone into thinking I was content so well, that I was complacent, I even convinced myself that I was happy. That is, until I met Will.

“He intercepted me on a mission, in the middle of a crowded ballroom. He just walked right up to me and said ‘Hi, I’m Will, as in, will you dance with me?’ I didn’t know he was F.O.W.L at the time. He didn’t know I was S.H.U.S.H. At that first meeting, he was just this handsome, out-going flirt. He was charming. I was charmed. I was nineteen, had only been in the field for about a year, and he was two years older and had roughly the same amount of experience. We were just young and a bit foolish and got distracted. Will told me later that Bradford nearly had his head that night, because he strayed off his own course of action to flirt with me. I had no reason to tell S.H.U.S.H about our encounter; after all, I was a Femme Fatale. Men were supposed to be attracted to me and flirt with me, and I was supposed to charm men into their devastation in return. This wasn’t unusual. It wasn’t even unusual when we crossed paths the second time. Third time is always the charm.”

*****

“Your father was a F.O.W.L agent by the name of William Velvet, code name Romeo,” Mrs. Beakley said, her mouth twisting. “We had no idea how ironically fitting that code name would be. The first time he appeared on our radar, in connection with your mother, was most likely not the first time they had crossed paths. But we do know that it was the first time they learned that the other was a spy.”

*****

“My first F.O.W.L code name was Juliet,” Femme Fatale said wryly. “That was when I was considered an enemy agent. Bradford gave it to me, used it to mock Will for trying to woo me unaware of my allegiances, since his codename was Romeo. But Will thought it was funny. He would quote Drakespeare whenever he saw me after that. We were… well, I resisted at first. I was still so loyal to S.H.U.S.H. But Will made me question my loyalties. Made me question myself. Made me realize how unhappy I was at S.H.U.S.H, in my mother’s shadow, never the spotlight. How much I craved glory for myself. Maybe I gave into temptation. Maybe I found myself. But, one way or another, I fell in love.

“Will was never supposed to recruit me for F.O.W.L. It was never his mission. But he convinced me to hear him out, hear why he was so passionate about being involved with F.O.W.L. And I saw that we weren’t so different. We ultimately wanted the same thing: a world filled with order and peace. The only difference really was that F.O.W.L wanted control. And I wanted that. I had never had control over my own life. Bound by my parents’ secrets. Bound by my organization and the firm expectations that I was to achieve just enough and be satisfied with just enough. Sent here or there, without complaint, without any say at all. And I was done. 

“I joined my boyfriend at F.O.W.L, working as a double-agent. For months, I lived a double-life, lying to and spying on S.H.U.S.H and sneaking around to be with Will and report to F.O.W.L. And Will and I were placed in charge of a large project, one that would take nearly a year of planning to properly execute. It would require a special weapon in order to pull off. And I knew just the person who was capable of building exactly what I wanted.”

*****

“At some point during her period of being a double agent, Emmeline went to Albert and asked him to build her a specialized weapon. Albert never questioned why she needed it, or what she planned to use it for. He never denied her much. He loved her dearly, and we both trusted her. He saw no reason to deny her. And so Albert designed and built the gas gun for Emmeline.”

*****

“Shortly after my father finished building the gas gun, we ran into two small problems. The first was that we realized, perhaps too late, that S.H.U.S.H would recognize the gas gun and question how it ended up in F.O.W.L’s hands. The high command had become very interested in the gas gun, and there was only one prototype. Dad and Twenty-Two both allowed me to keep it in my possession, despite other S.H.U.S.H executives wanting otherwise. Dad maintained that it was a gift for his daughter, who happened to be an agent. Twenty-Two backed him up. Which was nice, but it also meant that everyone would know exactly who gave F.O.W.L the gas gun when the time came.

“The second small problem was that I found out that I was carrying an egg. My daughter. Will and I came up with an incredibly brilliant, logical, and mature solution to our problems: We staged my kidnapping and the theft of the gas gun and went into hiding on a secret F.O.W.L-owned hideout. As one does.”

*****

“We had been at headquarters that evening, Emmeline at home. The neighbors heard a disturbance and called the cops, who contacted Albert. S.H.U.S.H, of course, had to get involved. Albert and I were devastated when we arrived on the scene. Everything we saw assured us that the worst had happened. There had clearly been a struggle, her weapons stolen, her personal belongings either destroyed or strewn across the room; S.H.U.S.H forensics confirmed that it was Emmeline’s blood at the scene, that she was injured. There were signs that she had fought back. There were signs she had been drugged. There had been signs that she was stolen from us. Albert and I vowed to not rest until we had recovered our daughter. We were so scared for her. We expected a ransom, a taunting message from F.O.W.L, something, anything, to work from. We got nothing. For three months, there was nothing but silence. Painful, excruciating silence.

“And then reports started pouring in of a bomb threat; it had led to massive panic, injuring many people. S.H.U.S.H began to investigate. Surveillance managed to find the briefest of brief, blurriest moment on the security cameras in which they caught William Velvet’s face. It was Albert who picked up on that he was carrying the gas gun; if there was on the smallest flash of Velvet’s face in that image, there was even less photographic evidence of the gas gun. But he invented it, knew it inside and out. He knew it was a tie to Emmeline.

“The other S.H.U.S.H executives didn’t think it was enough to go on, but Albert and I were desperate. We took the crumbs and followed them. And it paid off. It took another two months, but we finally linked him to a remote F.O.W.L location, a link that we prayed and hoped would lead us to Emmeline. The two of us went in, alone. We’d done it before on assignment, and we’d do it then to rescue our daughter.”

Mrs. Beakley paused, taking in a deep breath. This, this was the hard part of the story.

“Our prayers were answered. Miracle of all miracles, she was alive. But she was also lost to us forever.”

*****

“They found us the day after Webbigail hatched,” Femme Fatale said wistfully. “We named her after Will’s aunt, who raised him. I had just rocked her to sleep, about to lay her down in her cradle. Will was cooking us lunch. Everything was perfect. It was me and Will and now our beautiful baby girl. We were so happy. So of course my parents had to find us then.”

*****

“It was far too easy to get in. The security was so lax. We had no idea it was just the two of them. We practically stumbled over William, unarmed and off guard. I… I put a bullet in his shoulder before he could react. Albert and I demanded that he take us to Emmeline and release her. He quickly agreed to do so, but we were wholly unprepared for what we saw.

“Emmeline, not a prisoner, but there on her own accord. And, in her arms, a newly hatched baby girl.”

*****

“There I was, totally defenseless, holding my sleeping daughter, and in comes Will, drenched in his own blood, my mother’s gun pressed to the back of his skull. Dad rushed forward, checking me over for signs of harm, thoroughly astounded to see Webbigail, asking questions.

“Twenty-Two figured it out first, of course. The lack of other F.O.W.L members on the island, our lax security, how comfortable I was, how I had cried out when I saw Will covered in blood. Wouldn’t be too hard for her to figure out.”

She remembered staring her mother in the eyes the entire time, even as her father hovered around her, even as Will was injured before her eyes, even as her daughter somehow managed to sleep soundly in her arms.

She remembered Twenty-Two’s eyes vividly. She remembered the emotion there. The only place she ever showed emotion—only if you knew where to look, how to read her.

She saw the relief, then the shock, then realization dawn on her face.

Comprehension.

Hurt.

Anger.

Femme Fatale whispered, “There was probably fear in my eyes, too. That was probably what gave it all away.”

*****

“I stood there, staring my daughter in the eye, and realized that I was looking at a stranger,” Mrs. Beakley said softly. “That she hadn’t been captured at all. That she had run away. That she had joined F.O.W.L of her own accord. I confronted her on it. She didn’t deny it.”

*****

“I had no reason to lie at that point. She’d see right through it. It would do me no good. The worst part, though, was seeing the hurt on my father’s face. And my mother… well. She was no longer my mother. I was no longer her daughter. She didn’t say it, but it was clear that she disowned me then and there.”

*****

“I informed Emmeline that she and William would both be taken into S.H.U.S.H custody. Neither of them made a move to defend themselves or fight or even argue. They agreed that they would come quietly, without putting up a fight. William only asked that Emmeline be allowed to go pack a bag of things that would be needed for caring for you, Webby.”

*****

“I realized what Will wanted me to do. We both knew that the gas gun was in that very room, hidden away in the closet. It was my one and only chance to get some sort of weapon, some sort of advantage for our eventual escape. My father held Webbigail for the first and only time as I went to grab the bag and pack it. I made sure that the gas gun could be easily grabbed. When I said it was ready, Twenty-Two wanted to cuff us both. I said I wanted to carry my daughter. Dad stepped in, pointing out that Will was injured, and I wouldn’t run if I had Webbigail. Besides, they were both right there. Nothing was going to happen.

“She didn’t care about any of that. It was protocol. We were F.O.W.L. We were the enemy. I had arrived on that island on my own free will, and she was going to lead me off of it in custody.”

*****

“Emmeline said that she’d agree to the handcuffs, but she wanted to hold you for one last time, because she knew it would be a very long time before she could.”

*****

“I begged my father for that chance. And Dad… well, he had a hard time saying no to me. Even now that he knew that I was a traitor, even now that he knew that I was F.O.W.L, I was still his daughter. He still loved me. He still held on to some shred of trust in me. I passed the bag over to Will and took my baby in my arms.”

*****

“As soon as Albert had put you in Emmeline’s arms, William pulled out the gas gun and pulled the trigger, sending us all into a cloud of smoke.”

*****

“We ran. We ran like our lives depended on it, because they did.”

*****

“Albert and I pursued, following them to the escape vessel that they had.”

*****

“Will told me to get Webbigail in and go, that he’d hold them off. He gave me the gas gun so that I’d have some sort of means to protect myself. But I put Webbigail in the escape pod, activated our distress signal, and went back. I knew he couldn’t take on both Twenty-Two and my father on his own. I wasn’t going to leave without him.”

*****

“We had set some bombs, meant to be a distraction for our exit,” Mrs. Beakley said softly. “When we thought our escape from that island would have been more difficult. When we thought we’d need a distraction. When we thought we’d need to protect ourselves from being followed.

“Albert and I… we miscalculated. We were so determined to get in, get Emmeline, and get out, we didn’t care what destruction we left in our wake. We were so terrified for her, so angry, we were… careless. We just didn’t care. We wanted our daughter, and we didn’t care what happened to those who we thought took her from us, who we left behind to deal with our parting shots. We just didn’t take into consideration that it could backfire so badly on ourselves.

“I… I thought it would be just enough to stop them from leaving. I told Albert to use the remote to set off the bombs. We thought that they’d be closer to their vessel. We didn’t know that William was coming back to head us off, so that Emmeline could escape with you. We didn’t know that she went after him.

“Not until we got there, and watched with horror at how close they were to one of the bombs had been set. Albert ran forward, yelling at them both to move, that there was a bomb…”

*****

“Will pushed me out of the way when the bomb went off,” Femme Fatale whispered, barely a breath. “He covered me with his body.” She placed a hand on her elbow, the aching one, the old injury—of course it would have to act up tonight of all nights. As if seeing Twenty-Two again, as if seeing Webbigail again, wasn’t enough. “I lost my grip on the gas gun. I broke my arm. But I didn’t even notice the pain.

“It was nothing compared to the pain in my heart when Will wouldn’t—couldn’t—open his eyes.”

No matter how much she had cried. No matter how much she had begged. No matter how much she howled in agony.

Will Velvet, her first and only love, the father of her child, her everything, was dead.

*****

“The blast killed Albert,” Mrs. Beakley said, refusing to cry but struggling. “By the time I got to his side, he was gone.”

She had cried, and she had cried so much, over him. And now, after all these years, she had had to admit to herself several hard truths.

And one of those truths was that she always lied to herself when she said that this would be the last time she cried over the loss of Albert Vanderquack, that she had mourned more than enough.

She finally had to admit that her heart would always be broken.

“The bomb also killed William. I… I didn’t confirm with my own two eyes, but I knew from the way Emmeline was screaming. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the gas gun, half-buried under debris. I took it. I still don’t know why I took it. Why it mattered. Maybe it was because some grieved part of my mind told me that it was Albert’s last completed invention. Maybe it was instinct, driven into me by years of training and field work. But I took it.

“Then I used a tranquilizer dart to knock out Emmeline, took you from the F.O.W.L escape vessel, and got into the one Albert and I had arrived in. It wasn’t protocol, leaving Emmeline there. But I was still too hurt, too angry, to grief-stricken, to bring her along. I wanted nothing more to do with her. I blamed her for everything. And I couldn’t… I couldn’t look at her. I just couldn’t.”

*****

“I woke up two days later in a F.O.W.L infirmary. The distress signal worked, but far too late. William was still dead. My father was dead. And my daughter was gone. And my mother… she was dead to me. Whatever love I had for my mother was gone the second I lost everyone else I loved,” Femme Fatale whispered. She inhaled sharply, raspy, willing herself not to cry. “She took my daughter. Her bombs killed the love of my life. My father. Everything was gone. Ruined. And, to top it all off, she took the damn gas gun, the last thing my father ever gave me. Led me to think that it was destroyed, too, based off the report F.O.W.L did of the scene. And then she turned around and gave it to that fool, Darkwing Duck.

“I vowed that day that I would ruin her. Ruin S.H.U.S.H. Destroy them. I was no longer a double-agent. I was all in for F.O.W.L. Anything and everything so that I could get revenge, so that I could change the world, make it into the vision that Will and I shared of a better life, a better world for our daughter.

“Emmeline Vanderquack died that day. She drowned in fire and rage and grief. Femme Fatale rose in her place.”

The silence was heavy in the room, her story having come to a close. Every gritty, painful detail, laid bare.

She laid there, staring at the ceiling, silently begging Steelbeak to speak. To say anything. Then, finally, he did.

“Why did you tell me all this, Femme?” Steelbeak asked. Then he held up a hand. “Nope, I know. I’m such a dum dum no one will ever believe it if I blabbed, right? That, and I’m too afraid of you to even dream of running my mouth.”

Femme Fatale sat up, leaning heavily on her good arm as she looked him in the eye, saying, “I told you for two reasons, Steelbeak. The first is, you’re the only person in F.O.W.L that I trust enough to tell. The directors know some, but not all. They know I’m Twenty-Two’s daughter. They know I used to be S.H.U.S.H. They know that Will and I were romantically involved. They don’t know that Webbigail is my daughter. And they can’t find out, else they’ll put an end to me trying to recruit her before I can start.

“The second reason is, you defended me back there with the Eggheads. You stopped the rumors before they could start. You saved my reputation, and my secret, without even knowing you were doing so. I can’t thank you enough for that. But, unfortunately, that meant that I owed you one. And I don’t put myself in anyone’s debt. Ever. So this is my way of paying off that debt.”

Steelbeak, surprisingly, just stared at her. He didn’t object. He didn’t stare at her in pity or confusion. He wasn’t judging her or even looking at her in a new light. Just staring at her.

“Can I ask one thing, though?” Steelbeak asked. “You know, to make sure we’re really even?”

“What?” Femme Fatale asked.

“Why’d you never go after your kid?” Steelbeak asked. “Sounds like you really loved her. Yet you just let Twenty-Two get away with her.”

“I loved her immensely. I love her still,” Femme Fatale admitted. “But I knew Twenty-Two would be prepared for that. That I was not yet ready to go after them. I couldn’t get F.O.W.L to help without letting people know that she was my child. I realized that everyone at S.H.U.S.H was right: I was only as good Twenty-Two. I needed F.O.W.L to learn how to become better than her. Then, and only then, could I go after her for stealing my daughter from me. In a way, F.O.W.L’s goals are my personal goals. The more I work to destroy McDuck, the more I destroy her. But McDuck has to be destroyed before I can get my daughter back. That is, unless I can convert her first. Either way, I plan to have a proper reunion with Webbigail soon.”

Steelbeak nodded and stood up. “Thanks for trusting me with this, Femme. I’ll guard it with my life. Promise.”

Femme Fatale smiled. “I know you will. Because, yes, if I hear you breathe so much of a word of any of this, I will hunt you down and torture you until you beg for death.”

Steelbeak let out a bark of laughter. “Consider my beak sealed tighter than when Black Heron gets pissed off at me. Tell you what, if I ever think I might slip, I’ll just annoy the crap out of Black Heron. It’ll be a win-win.”

“Speaking of Black Heron, she’ll be expecting us soon,” Femme Fatale said, looking at the clock. They were still some distance from the island, but she knew they had to be getting close. “Go get some sleep before we have to deal with her and her so-called brilliance.”

Steelbeak left her alone and she laid back down, letting the rocking of the ocean lull her to sleep.

She realized that this was the closest she had slept to her daughter since the night Webbigail hatched, and it made her more resolute in her goals.

There would be more nights like that, she promised herself. Nights where five decks and jail cell walls didn’t keep them apart.

 _Soon,_ Femme Fatale thought as she drifted to sleep. _Soon…_

*****

“I was in the process of returning to S.H.U.S.H,” Mrs. Beakley said softly. “I had you. I had the gas gun. But I had lost Albert. I had lost Emmeline. I contacted S.H.U.S.H to report in, to say I was coming. I told them Albert was dead first and foremost.

“And they didn’t even care. I was barely holding it together, and they didn’t care that I had just had my heart ripped out. They demanded to know about the gas gun. If I had recovered it at least. Or Emmeline. ‘Or any other assets’. That’s what they said. They called my lover, my husband in everything but name, and our daughter assets.

“I made up my mind then and there. I lied. I told them the gas gun was destroyed. I told them Emmeline had been dead before we got there. I didn’t breathe a word about you. And I told them I needed to take a leave of absence, though I told myself that I would be turning in my resignation as soon as possible.

“I got back to the mainland, got on a plane for Duckburg, and did not stop until we got to McDuck Manor. It was the safest, non-S.H.U.S.H affiliated place I could think to go. I told Scrooge the details he needed to know, and begged him to let us stay. If he hadn’t… I have no idea where we would be. But he let us stay in the mansion, and I used every moment I had to plan and prepare to protect you and, eventually, train you to protect yourself. For years, I was so terrified of Femme Fatale and F.O.W.L coming after you, stealing you away from me.

“I know I should have told you all of this before now. I’m sorry that I didn’t. But I was afraid. I had lost your grandfather. I lost your mother. I lost my faith in the organization I had dedicated so much of my life to. And I couldn’t… I couldn’t lose you too.”

The block of cells was quiet for a long moment, then Webby asked quietly, “Were you afraid I would turn out like her? Be a traitor and evil?”

“No,” Mrs. Beakley said with a small laugh, wiping her eyes. “Oh, no, Webby. Of all my fears, that has never been one. You may look like her. You may even sometimes act and sound like her. And, yes, you definitely fight like her. But you are not your mother. I knew that, for the longest time. But I still couldn’t stop seeing the little girl I failed before, even long after I knew that you were so very different from Emmeline. Your heart is much stronger, kinder. I know you’ll always do what is right, no matter how hard it is, no matter if someone else thinks that the right way is different. But your heart is what has always worried me. I’ve always been scared that, if you knew the truth about your mother, that you would try and find her. To bring her back, to get her out of F.O.W.L. Or that she would take advantage of you and your good heart for F.O.W.L’s gains.”

Webby was quiet for another moment, then she asked, “Do you trust me? Even though you trusted my mom and she became Femme Fatale?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Beakley said. “Yes, I trust you. And I don’t regret trusting Emmeline. Am I still hurt that she betrayed that trust? Yes. Trusting someone is a risk. For me, it will always be a risk. Unless it’s you. I’m sorry that I don’t always show you that. I’m sorry that I don’t tell you that enough.”

“I understand, though,” Webby said, nodding slightly. “You did it all because you love me. You loved me even from the beginning.”

“From the moment I laid eyes on you.” Mrs. Beakley confirmed. “From the second I realized that you were my granddaughter. Even as I was angry and hurt by your mother’s actions, by her choices, I knew in that moment that I loved you and would go to the end of the universe to protect you.”

“Even though I’m basically the result of betrayal and evil?” Webby asked, again a bit cautiously.

“No, you’re not the result of betrayal or evil,” Mrs. Beakley said. “Emmeline and William loved each other. He just happened to be F.O.W.L, and she happened to betray S.H.U.S.H. But you were always, _always_ the result of love. And love can never, ever be evil.”

Webby’s entire body seemed to relax at that and she smiled. Then she stood up, looked around the cell, and then looked back over at her grandmother, saying, “Do you trust me?”

“To the end of the universe. Forever and always.” Mrs. Beakley promised, smiling softly at Webby.

Webby’s smile grew, her eyes bright as she said, “Okay. Then here’s the plan.”


	6. Chapter 6

Femme Fatale needed a cup of tea. Well, she needed much more than a cup. She needed an entire pot of tea and time to enjoy it. As it turned out, she had neither. 

Could she have sent for a cup of tea while she painstakingly applied make-up to cover up her new assortment of bruises? Yes. But she knew that, if she had, it would have gotten cold as she devoted her time to blending and contouring. Besides, she had already let the Eggheads see her weak once in the last twenty-four hours, something no one had seen in nearly thirteen years; she wasn’t going to see any one of them until she had a face full of armor on.

Steelbeak had been right, of course, there wasn’t enough make-up to cover everything; there was no way it was possible, even with her years of experience. Still, she gave it a shot and was satisfied with the results.

Femme Fatale stifled a yawn as she readjusted her grip on the suitcase carrying the gas gun and wound her other arm through Steelbeak’s before he led her down the gangplank, where Black Heron was waiting with her own assortment of Eggheads.

“About time you showed up,” She snapped. “What took you so long?”

“Easy,” Steelbeak warned. “We’ve been busy. More productive than you’ve been, that’s for sure.”

Black Heron arched an eyebrow. “I highly doubt that.”

Steelbeak puffed his chest out as he said, “Doubt all you want, but we’ve got Twenty-Two, Darkwing Duck, McDuck, and Twenty-Two’s brat all in our brig. Plus McDuck’s pilot and some other kid that we have no idea where she came from but she’s probably one of McDuck’s. Dunno where he keeps getting them; we should probably look into that.”

Black Heron blinked in surprise, looking at Femme Fatale for confirmation.

Femme Fatale only smirked. “The Directors are going to be very pleased with us. After all, we have accomplished much more than we originally planned. Don’t think they’ll object too much to this little improvisation.”

“I want to see them with my own two eyes,” Black Heron demanded.

Femme Fatale did too, for different reasons. She snapped her fingers at an Egghead, who jumped to attention. “Bring our prisoners from the brig off the boat and install them in the prison cells here. We’ll collect them to bring to high command after Switzerland is done.”

In the dawn light, Black Heron squinted slightly at Femme Fatale. Then she made a slight humming noise before saying, “Well, judging by the look of you, I shouldn’t be too surprised you tussled with Twenty-Two. I’m honestly more surprised you’re on your feet.”

“Prepare to be even more impressed,” Steelbeak said. “Femme here took on Twenty-Two’s kid and won.”

That seemed to be the most shocking thing Black Heron had heard, gaping at Femme Fatale slightly.

For her part, Femme Fatale smiled smugly. It was getting harder to keep up her act; she really just wanted to get Switzerland over with so she could lie down and be alone with her pain. She ached all over, but seeing Twenty-Two and Webbigail again—and learning that, after all this time, her own daughter didn’t know her mother’s face or name—brought up a lot of emotions she thought she had buried with Will.

“I lost an arm to that little brat, and you just get to waltz around with a couple of little bruises?” Black Heron demanded, sounding both impressed and annoyed.

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic, you lost a _prosthetic_ to Webbigail, not a flesh and blood limb,” Femme Fatale huffed. “Twenty-Two’s the one you lost the real one to, anyway.”

Femme Fatale had been familiar with that story, even before she heard Black Heron’s take on it. A classic Twenty-Two adventure with her trusty partner, Scrooge McDuck. Only for it to practically be repeated several decades later, with the addition of one Webby Vanderquack.

All three of whom Femme Fatale held prisoner. In her brig. On her boat. Hours ago.

Which meant it was about time something happened.

One of the Eggheads approached. Well, that was an understatement. It appeared she had been shoved forward as the tribute to speak to them. Femme Fatale recognized her instantly; she was the odd little one, the one Femme Fatale still couldn’t figure out ended up in F.O.W.L, too kind and cheerful for her own good. Still, she pressed forward, only looking a little afraid. “Um, Miss Fatale? Mr. Steelbeak? Dr. Heron?”

“Yes, Pepper?” Femme Fatale prompted, resisting to roll her eyes at the honorific given to Black Heron. Doctor, indeed. Femme Fatale knew all too well that Black Heron’s claims to have gotten a doctorate in chemistry were bogus when the truth was she had been a promising pharmacology student who suddenly decided that there were much better uses for her knowledge of drugs and chemicals two months into the program.

“It’s just, uh, well, we thought you ought to know, something happened with the prisoners.” Pepper said, playing with her fingers slightly. Nervously.

Femme Fatale was expecting this. Had been since the moment they had taken prisoners in the first place. She was honestly just surprised it took this long.

“What happened?” Steelbeak asked.

“The prisoners, well… They escaped.” Pepper said with a sheepish smile and a small shrug.

“THEY WHAT?” Steelbeak and Black Heron exclaimed.

Femme Fatale could only sigh and roll her eyes.

_Of course they did,_ she thought.

She should have gotten that cup of tea…

Femme Fatale opened her mouth to bark an order, but changed her mind when she saw a small shadow standing on the roof of the island’s cottage. A shadow that she knew, instinctively, wore pink.

It appeared that it was time for the third mother-daughter reunion in as many days.

*****

Huey sat at the table in the houseboat with his hands supporting his cheeks, staring blankly ahead. He only blinked when Donald set a platter of pancakes in the center of the table, looking up as he watched his brothers grab pancakes and begin to fight over the syrup bottle.

“I know my pancakes aren’t as good as Mrs. B’s,” Donald said with a small smile, joining Huey and his brothers around the table. “But I didn’t think they were that bad.” He added that with a small gesture towards Huey’s empty plate.

“Sorry, Uncle Donald, I’m just not that hungry,” Huey admitted, pushing the plate away and leaning back, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Look, we’re all worried about Webby and Mrs. B and Uncle Scrooge and Gos and Darkwing and Launchpad,” Dewey said as he drowned his pancakes in syrup. “But they’re all, like, the scariest people we know. Well, not Launchpad, and Darkwing’s got his moments, but seriously, they’re going to kick F.O.W.L’s butt so hard they end up in another zip code. Or another country. Or solar system. Yeah. Solar system. That sounds right.”

“I’m worried about them, too,” Huey said. “But I’m more worried about Fenton right now. You guys saw him yesterday. Everything just seemed… off. Like he wasn’t himself. And I’m not talking about the difference between Gizmoduck and Fenton. They intersect too much to not have one affect the other. But that… that wasn’t him. Either of him. You know what I mean?”

Donald sighed and gave his nephew a compassionate look. “Huey, I understand why you’re worried. Fenton’s just coming back from being seriously injured. He still needs time and space to readjust.”

“That’s true,” Louie said, spearing several pieces of pancake with his fork. “But readjusting would probably be easier if Fenton didn’t avoid being Gizmoduck like Mom avoids black licorice.”

Huey’s eyes suddenly widened and he whipped around to his brother. “Wait, what did you just say?”

“That… Fenton’s avoiding being Gizmoduck like Mom avoids black licorice?” Louie repeated slowly, his brow furrowing.

Huey slapped his hands on the table, grinning. “Black licorice! That’s it! Louie, you are a genius!”

As Huey leapt up from the table and ran out of the houseboat, Louie called after him, “Can I get that in writing? And notarized?”

*****

Webby smiled. All was going according to plan. She had assigned Granny and Darkwing to distract Steelbeak, Black Heron, and the Eggheads, while Uncle Scrooge and Gosalyn covered for Launchpad so that he could get the plane running on her signal.

And now Femme Fatale had spotted her.

Webby was going to be the one to reclaim the gas gun, and then she was going to get her friends home.

Webby dropped down from the thatched roof, knowing Femme Fatale was after her and hearing the cries of surprise and anger as Darkwing and Granny made their presence known.

Webby found her hiding spot, lying in wait as Femme Fatale came around the other side of the cottage, looking around for her.

But Webby waited.

She waited, and she watched, barely breathing, listening.

It was satisfying, hearing the click of the case opening.

But it was even more satisfying when she was able to sneak up behind Femme Fatale and say softly, “Hi, Mom.”

Webby stared down the barrel of the gas gun, then she flicked her gaze up at Femme Fatale, her hands wrapped around the gun, a finger on the trigger.

Femme Fatale huffed and arched an eyebrow. “Well, I see you’ve processed our last little tête-à-tête.”

“Granny told me everything,” Webby confirmed.

Femme Fatale scowled. “I’m sure she did. Wanted to make sure she could further indoctrinate you into S.H.U.S.H and all the propaganda that goes into it.”

“Granny’s no longer S.H.U.S.H,” Webby said. “And she lost her faith in S.H.U.S.H the same day that she lost you.”

“She lost me before that day she _stole you from me_ ,” Femme Fatale snapped. “That was just the day that she realized it.”

Then Femme Fatale’s eyes widened as Webby reached up and put her hands on the barrel, pushing it down.

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” Webby said softly. “We can still be a family, you know. Granny loves you. She misses you. I want to get to know you, the real you.” She paused, then added, “Granny said that she knows that you really loved my dad. That I was born out of love. Which means that you love me, right?” 

“Oh, don’t you start,” Femme Fatale snarled, taking a step back, pulling the gas gun away. “I know what you’re trying to do. I am a bloody Femme Fatale! Emotional manipulation is my deadliest weapon, so don’t even try to play that game with me! If you really want to know, the answer is yes. The answer has _always_ been yes. Everything I am, everything I’ve done, has always been because I love you.”

Her voice cracked on that last word. So did Webby’s heart.

Webby didn’t realize that she needed to hear that. That she had hoped to hear that.

Webby knew she was loved. By her Granny, by Uncle Scrooge, by the boys, and Donald and Della and all of her friends. But there was something about hearing it from the one voice she never expected to hear it from. Someone who was a complete stranger to her, but still loved her.

“You could join me, Webbigail,” Femme Fatale said softly. “Come with me. Join F.O.W.L. I… I wanted to wait, to give you the world as Will and I envisioned it. But maybe we were always meant to do it together. You said it yourself, you want to reign in chaos. You’re good at it, too. Imagine what you can do, all the _good_ you can do. You’ve had all of Twenty-Two’s training, now think about what I can teach you. How much greater you can be, how much you can learn. You could be better than either of us ever have been and ever will be.”

“Controlling chaos the way F.O.W.L envisions it is only good from a certain point of view,” Webby pointed out. “And when I told you I wanted to reign in chaos, I was talking about a _party_. A party for a friend whose success I wanted to see, because I knew how much good she could do for her community. It was never about controlling the whole world. I’m sorry, I can’t join you, I won’t join F.O.W.L. But I’m not joining S.H.U.S.H either. I’m not you, but I’m also not Granny. No matter what either of you have taught me or have to teach me, it won’t make a difference. I’m Webby. I follow my own path, and my own rules.”

Femme Fatale was quiet for a moment, staring at her. There was something in her voice—pride, longing, regret, Webby didn’t know for sure—as she said, “You already are greater than either of us, then.”

And, suddenly, the gas gun was being pointed at Webby again.

“That means,” Femme Fatale said. “That you’re a much bigger threat than I originally thought.”

Webby couldn’t help herself. She smirked.

“You underestimated me,” Webby said. “Don’t worry, a lot of people do. And then they regret it.”

Webby surged forward, and she saw Femme Fatale calculate, anticipating Webby’s target. Face. Torso. Legs. Arm. Wrist.

Femme Fatale was expecting a kick or a punch.

But she underestimated Webby, and the force of her tackle.

For the second time in two days, Femme Fatale was flat on her back on the ground, staring up into Webby’s eyes.

This time was different. They were looking into each other’s souls, looking at each other in a new light.

Webby didn’t see evil in her mother’s eyes, but instead saw confidence and passion.

Instead of rage and grief, Femme Fatale saw hope and love in her daughter’s eyes.

Femme Fatale told herself that hitting the ground on her already injured arm was what caused the gas gun to practically fall out of her hand—just like it had twelve years before, the day after Webby hatched.

It had been a long twelve years.

Webby didn’t hesitate, she grabbed the gas gun and ran.

And Femme Fatale…

She didn’t hesitate. No, why would anyone think she hesitated to run after Webby Vanderquack?

As she ran, Webby aimed the gas gun up into the air and pulled the trigger, sending up a cloud of smoke—the signal—as rain began to fall from the sky.

As she ran, she saw Darkwing and Granny, saw that they both saw the signal, and didn’t need to see that they were behind her. As she ran, she heard the sound of the airplane’s engine begin to roar, the rotors turning, Launchpad at the helm. As she ran, she saw two very different shades of red standing at the hatch of the plane, Gosalyn’s hair and Uncle Scrooge’s trademark coat, beckoning them to hurry.

As she ran, Eggheads began to block her path, attempting to grab her. She ducked and dodged and leaped, past them, over them, pushing through them all until her feet were no longer feeling grass and dirt but cold metal, already slick with rain. She had to grab hold of a strap hanging from the wall to keep from slipping, pressing her back to the wall as she watched Granny and Darkwing leap in after her, the former shouting, “Go, LP, go!”

Webby jerked slightly as Launchpad did as requested, the plane surging forward, slowly starting to lift off the ground. Beside her, the hatch began to slowly close the more Launchpad continued to climb the plane higher and higher into the air, Uncle Scrooge’s fist slammed hard on the button that closed it.

Webby turned and her eyes widened slightly as she watched Femme Fatale chase after them.

Webby watched, and watched Femme Fatale’s eyes, watched her calculate, watched her plan, watched her prepare to strike. The hatch wasn’t closing fast enough, she knew that because of how creative Uncle Scrooge’s mutterings were, though she could barely hear it over the roar of the engine, the sound of the air whipping around them, and the thickness of Uncle Scrooge’s Scottish brogue—always thickest when things were going wrong.

Webby’s heart began to sink. There was still a chance Femme Fatale—or any one of the other Eggheads or Steelbeak, also in hot pursuit. But Femme Fatale stood the best chance. She had the skill, the determination, the right exact moment precisely calculated. She could get in, grab the gas gun, and get out in plenty of time.

And then Femme Fatale’s eyes met Webby’s.

To Webby’s surprise, a faint smile crossed Femme Fatale’s beak.

And then Femme Fatale fell, hitting the ground, hard.

Webby felt her mouth open in surprise, rushing forward to see if she could catch one more glimpse of her mother, but all she could see was a crumpled ball on the ground, getting fainter and fainter the more they rose into the air until nothing could be seen at all as the hatch closed.

Webby sat back, breathing hard.

But she smiled, her eyes beginning to fill with tears.

Femme Fatale could have made it. She chose not to.

She let them go.

_There’s hope for her yet,_ Webby thought as she got to her feet. The gas gun was still clutched tightly in her hand, close to her chest, as she went over to Darkwing, who was embracing Gosalyn, a we-survived-escaping-F.O.W.L hug.

Darkwing looked up at her, rising to his feet slowly. Webby held out the gas gun in both her hands.

“I think this,” Webby said. “Belongs to you.”

“Are you sure?” Darkwing asked.

They hadn’t talked about it, about the history of the gas gun and what it meant. That it had been built by her grandfather, for her mother. That it was something her father had used to desperately protect his daughter and girlfriend in his final moments. That it had been the source of so much pain and trouble for her family.

She knew what Darkwing meant, when he asked if she was sure. He was giving her an opportunity to keep it; she had a much greater claim to it, practically her birthright.

But Webby didn’t need the gas gun. She never had. Instead, she was entrusting it to a friend, someone who she knew did need it and could use it well.

Webby nodded. “Yes. I’m sure. I’ve never been more sure in my life.”

Darkwing smiled at her and accepted the gas gun, gingerly, reverently. “Thank you, Webby.”

Webby threw her arms around Darkwing’s waist, hugging him tight. Then she released him and ran across the plane’s hold and into her Granny’s waiting arms.

“Love you, Granny,” Webby whispered.

“I love you, too, Webby,” Granny whispered back, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “And I’m so proud of you. I always have been, and I always will be.”

Webby knew this, of course, but it was nice to hear it.

*****

Unlike the day before, Huey found Gandra first. She glanced up and lowered her headphones when she saw Huey.

“Sup, Red?” Gandra asked casually.

“Hi, Gandra,” Huey said. “Um, is Fenton here?”

“Yeah, he’s around here somewhere,” Gandra said, looking around the lab.

“Is he, uh, well, um,” Huey stumbled over his own words. He had come here knowing exactly what he wanted to say to Fenton, but he hadn’t factored in having to talk to anyone else before then.

“In a better mood than yesterday? Actually able to have a civil conversation with?” Gandra suggested, her voice a bit dry. “Haven’t spoken to him yet, so I don’t know. And frankly I’m not going to until he apologizes.”

Huey internally winced. Because, on one hand, good for Gandra. On the other hand, bad for Huey. He really wanted Fenton to hear what he had to say, but was Fenton even going to hear him out, or was Huey asking to get his own head bit off?

“I see,” Huey said. “Well. I’m going to find him.”

Gandra nodded, then she asked, “Hey, have you… have you heard from Webby today? Or your Uncle Scrooge?”

“No?” Huey answered, frowning at her in confusion. “Should I have?”

“I was just hoping to hear that someone’s heard from them,” Gandra said, sounding more concerned about that than over Fenton. “Just let me know if you hear anything, okay?”

“Okay?” Huey said before walking away. He’d worry about that later. One thing to worry about at a time.

Huey went deeper into the lab, looking left and right. Eventually, he came across Manny, who seemed to know exactly who Huey was looking for before the boy could voice his question, pointing Huey in the right direction.

Huey found Fenton hunched over a book, tapping a pencil to his notebook, mumbling under his breath. Huey cleared his throat and Fenton looked up.

“Oh, Huey,” Fenton said, sticking the pencil in the book as an impromptu bookmark. While he still sounded and looked far from the Fenton Huey was familiar with, he was relieved that Fenton seemed to be in a better mood than the day before. At least, he hoped he was interpreting this correctly and not simply resorting to wishful thinking. “What brings you by?”

“I was hoping you and I could talk,” Huey said. “In private?”

“Sounds serious,” Fenton commented.

“It is. Very serious.”

Fenton frowned, but nodded. “Okay. Follow me.” Fenton led Huey to the lab’s break room, and Fenton closed the door behind them as they each took a seat in one of the rickety chairs around the worn table in the center of the room. “What’s on your mind?”

“I wanted to talk about yesterday,” Huey said, ready to charge on ahead. Fenton suddenly didn’t meet Huey’s eyes, glancing away. Huey also didn’t like that he couldn’t tell if this was in anger or shame.

“What about yesterday?” Fenton asked, trying to sound casual, but the words had a sharpness to them. Not enough to cut, but enough to be a warning.

For a moment, Huey did consider taking that warning seriously. But then he took a deep breath. He came here with a mission, knowing exactly what he was going to say, and he was going to say it. “You’re scared to get back into the armor, aren’t you? Because you were wearing it when you were kidnapped and got… hurt.”

This was the word that the adults had used when they gave their own explanation of events to Huey and his friends. That F.O.W.L had ‘hurt’ Fenton. And they had hurt him. But Huey knew that there was another word for what had happened. He just couldn’t bring himself to say it. And right now definitely wasn’t the right time to use it anyway.

Fenton still didn’t meet Huey’s gaze. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” He said, sounding distracted. Uninterested. Deflective.

Huey decided to go a different route.

“Do you know my mom really hates black licorice?” Huey said softly. “Like, really, really hates it. It’s because when she was on the Moon, all she had was Gyro’s Oxy-Chew, and its flavor is black licorice. She didn’t like that flavor anyway, before the Moon, but that was all that she could taste for ten years. And she had no choice, if she wanted to survive. A few months after Mom returned home from the Moon, me and my brothers were out with her. We decided to go to the candy store. We didn’t even make it through the door.

“Mom couldn’t go in. It had been her idea to go, but she couldn’t even take a step in. She had to get away from there as fast as possible. She didn’t even say anything, she just ran. When we finally caught up with her, and got her calm, Mom explained that she immediately could smell black licorice. Dewey, Louie and I, we could smell all sorts of things. Chocolate, caramel, sugar, strawberry, cherry. But she could smell black licorice, and it gave her flashbacks to being on the Moon, and she almost forgot that she was home, that she was safe. And, I got to thinking, that maybe, just maybe, that Femme Fatale, F.O.W.L, the Gizmoduck armor, it’s all your black licorice. And, more to the point, it is your black licorice while the trauma is still fresh. You haven’t had enough time to process it yet. So instead you’re trying to hide from it.”

There was silence stretching between them, and then Fenton let out a groan, resting his elbows on the table, putting his head in his hands.

“I don’t want to hide,” Fenton said. “I just want everything to go back to normal, okay? That’s all.”

“What do you mean?” Huey asked, his brow furrowing. “What does ‘normal’ mean?”

“Normal means normal,” Fenton insisted, head still ducked and in his hands, though he splayed his fingers some. “Like how things were before. If things go back to normal, it’s like it never happened.”

But it did happen. They couldn’t do anything about that. Huey knew that. He was pretty sure Fenton knew that. But now that he had gotten Fenton to open up, Huey wanted to know if he could get to the root of the problem.

“What does ‘normal’ look like?” Huey asked. “What does it feel like? What does it entail?”

It was like a dam burst, and words started spilling out of Fenton.

“It means everyone stops looking at me like they pity me, or that they think I’m going to fall to pieces at any second, and stop being nice to me just because they feel sorry for me and being hesitant to touch me because they think I’m going to break. And it means that my back doesn’t hurt when I’m stressed and I don’t have nightmares and that I can actually sleep through the night and that I can feel safe in the armor again. I hate that _she_ took that from me,” Huey didn’t need to ask who the ‘she’ was that Fenton spoke of, the pronoun practically spat. It could only be Black Heron. “She took away a safe place for me. She tainted something I love, something that gives me purpose, and she’s made me doubt myself and hesitate and I hate her for that.

“I hate her so much, and sometimes I just hate that I hate her. I hate that I still sometimes feel her tools as she ripped me to shreds and I hate that she made it her mission to break me and I hate that she succeeded, and I hate myself for lying to myself and thinking she hadn’t, for lying to myself that I was stronger than her. I hate that I’m letting people down, and I hate the person I’ve been the last twenty-four hours, and I hate that I’m telling you all this right now but I can’t stop, and I hate that I’m scared, and I hate that Gyro wants to rip open the armor to add more new things that are ultimately good and necessary but at the same time I don’t think I can stand it and…”

Huey’s heart sank as he watched Fenton’s fingers curl into his hair, listening as Fenton took several deep, shuddering breaths before he was able to regulate his breathing some. There really wasn’t a chapter in the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook for this. Huey had figured out the problem, and now Fenton had shared with him that the problem was bigger than Huey originally thought, and Huey wanted to help he just didn’t know how. What should he do?

_Okay, no JWG. How about WWUDD?_

Fortunately, where the JWG failed, following the “What Would Uncle Donald Do?” mentality triumphed as Huey got up from his seat and walked around the table, putting his arms around Fenton.

The hug was brief, and Fenton looked down at Huey with a sigh. “I’m sorry. For dumping this all on you and for being short with you yesterday.”

“You had a bad day, and sounds like you were in pain,” Huey said, letting Fenton go. “Not to mention, still hurting inside.”

Fenton sighed again, rubbing his forehead. “It’s not a good excuse. I lashed out at the people I care about the most, and being in a bad mood doesn’t justify it. I just… I didn’t want to talk about it. I kind of still don’t.”

“And that’s okay,” Huey said. “You’ve got to take this at your own pace. I know you still want to be Gizmoduck. I can tell that you’ve still got a passion for being a hero, for wanting to help people. Fenton, whenever someone needs help, whether you know them or not, you’re always ready to be there. You give so much of yourself, all the time, to everyone. Will you let us return the favor and help you?”

Fenton’s smile became just a bit bigger, just a bit happier, as he nodded. “That I can do.”

*****

Femme Fatale woke up in the infirmary, feeling dizzy and in pain. She stared up at the ceiling, breathing deeply, willing the world to stop spinning. The infirmary, like everything else F.O.W.L, was black and red. It made the white of Steelbeak’s suit stand out as he hovered beside her.

Femme Fatale couldn’t help it. She smiled. Aw, the big lug was worried about her. She really couldn’t ask for a better best friend.

Not that she’d ever tell him that he was her best friend, of course. They both had reputations to uphold, and nowhere was there room for best friends.

“Mornin’, Femme,” Steelbeak said, voice low.

“Morning?” Femme Fatale repeated, her words slurring slightly. “What time is it? What day is it?”

“Okay, so it’s more evenin’ than mornin’,” Steelbeak said with a shrug. “But I didn’t know what was best to say to someone when they first wake up when it’s not mornin’.”

“Fair enough,” Femme Fatale mumbled. “Help me sit up?”

Steelbeak did, carefully easing her into a sitting position, propping pillows behind her. Femme Fatale scowled down at the cast her arm was bound in and hissed out a swear word.

“Sorry,” Steelbeak said, evidently thinking the curse was aimed at him instead of the cast. She was going to be out of the field for several weeks now. _Of course_ she would break her arm right before she was supposed to have a beachside rendezvous with one of her marks in Fiji. What “accessory” clashes the most with a swimsuit? A cast, that’s what.

She had been so looking forward to Fiji, a well-earned reward for a job well done. Unfortunately, the job was now nowhere near done.

“How angry are the Directors?” Femme Fatale asked.

“Super angry,” Steelbeak reported. “Luckily for us, they’re more mad at McDuck, Twenty-Two, and that Darkwing guy than they are mad at us.”

“Did you find a way to pin all the blame on Black Heron, by any chance?”

“Figured that was your job.”

Damnit, it was her job, wasn’t it?

Femme Fatale looked down at her arm again. She barely remembered being put under anesthesia. She barely remembered the doctor poking and prodding and X-rays and being told screws and rods were going to be put in her arm. She barely remembered arriving at this base, wasn’t even quite sure where she was. She barely remembered Steelbeak scooping her off the landing strip and carrying her back to her cabin on the _Emmeline_ , holding her carefully and protectively as she hid her tears against his broad chest. She hadn’t really remembered anything after she… tripped.

She had meant to go down. She hadn’t meant to go down so hard. She hadn’t meant to re-break her arm.

But, apparently, she had been doomed to repeat the worst day of her life.

The gas gun. Her daughter. Her mother. Losing all of that had been the same.

At least, this time, she hadn’t lost herself.

Had she?

_We can still be a family, you know,_ Webby had said. She had been so earnest, so open. There was no subterfuge, no hidden agenda, even if she did eventually go for the gas gun. The gas gun that hadn’t even been her priority, Femme Fatale had realized. Webby’s priority, her mission, had been to try and convince Femme Fatale to come with her, to leave F.O.W.L.

To be a family.

And yaybe they _could_ be a family. Someday. Femme Fatale wasn’t going to hold her breath.

She glanced over at Steelbeak. “I need a favor.”

Steelbeak arched an eyebrow at her. “Wouldn’t that mean you owe me one later?”

“It’s worth it,” Femme Fatale insisted. “This is very much worth it. And it’s actually going to be two favors, really.”

Now both of Steelbeak’s eyebrows were raised.

Femme Fatale smiled. “First, I’d like you to get me a cup of tea. That’s the easier of the two favors.”

“And the other favor?” Steelbeak asked, already rising to his feet.

Femme Fatale settled back into her pillows, saying, “Second, I need you to find something in Belfast for me.”

*****

Gandra almost did a double-take when she saw Fenton approaching her workstation. Not just walking past it, but approaching it, giving her a slightly nervous smile.

“Hi,” Fenton said when he got close.

“Hey,” Gandra responded, giving him the barest of nods in response.

“Um, can we talk?” Fenton asked.

“I don’t know, can we? Last time I tried, it didn’t go so well for me,” Gandra said flatly, leaning back in her seat, her arms folded over her chest, arching an eyebrow at him. She was considerably less angry with him, yes, but still just angry enough that she wasn’t going to let him forget it.

For his part, Fenton winced and looked a bit sheepish. “Uh, yeah, about that... I, uh, can we talk in private?”

She was angry at him, yes.

But she still loved him, so she nodded.

She followed him out into the hallway, but that was as far as she would go. “What do you want to talk about, Fenton?”

Fenton took a deep breath and wasn’t quite able to look her in the eye as he ran a hand through his hair, saying in a rush, “Gandra, I’m so sorry for snapping at you yesterday. I just… I was overwhelmed, and frustrated, and I swear I’m not trying to justify my behavior—I can’t, what I said, what I did, it was totally inexcusable—but I guess what I’m trying to say is, I’m sorry, and it won’t happen again, and I can’t apologize enough—”

“Suit,” Gandra said, cutting him off. He blinked, staring at her, a bit alarmed. “I’m not going to say it’s okay, but I am going to say that I forgive you. And, okay, Kevin and Raymond told me I shouldn’t apologize for anything, but I am going to say I’m sorry that I didn’t respect your space when you clearly wanted it.”

“And I’m going to apologize again for accusing you of hovering when you were just trying to check in on me, mentally and emotionally,” Fenton said. “I just… I’ve felt like things have been different between us, ever since, uh, things happened. But it’s also not just with you, I’ve felt it with Gyro and my mom and Elise and Drake and… it’s just, I felt like everyone was treating me differently, like I wasn’t as strong and capable as I once was, and so I tried too hard to make it seem like I was fine. And I told myself it was because I didn’t want everyone to worry, but really I was afraid that I was broken or fragile or something and everyone could see it. Like there was something about myself that I couldn’t see, that I didn’t know about. And that really scared me.”

Gandra wrapped her arms around Fenton’s neck, pulling him to her, holding him for a moment. He wrapped his arms around her waist, returning the embrace, resting his forehead on her shoulder and taking deep breaths. Gandra nuzzled the side of his neck, pressing a kiss there, before pulling back, looking him in the eye.

“Fenton, we were all so scared we were going to lose you,” She whispered. “We know you’re strong. We know you’re more than capable of being Gizmoduck or doing whatever you set your mind to. And we’re all here and ready to support you, no matter what that is. I know I wasn’t trying to treat you differently, but, Fenton, I don’t know what I’d do without you. So I’m still scared. I keep trying to tell myself that everything’s okay, that you’re okay, that we’re okay, but deep down I’m scared that this is just a dream. That I’ll wake up and you’ll be gone, like you weren’t even here at all, and that I’m back at F.O.W.L. If there’s any chance you’re smoke in my hands, I’m going to grab as much as I can and hold on tight before you drift away.”

Fenton took Gandra’s hand and put it on his chest, over his heart. She could feel the beat there, like she had all those weeks ago when she had synched her nanites to the heart monitor he wore, taking so much comfort in that rhythm. “I’m not smoke, and I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here. But, please, hold on. I need it. I need you. And, I promise, I’m not going to let go of you, either.”

A grin spread across Gandra’s face and she rose onto her toes slightly, pressing a kiss to the side of Fenton’s face. “Good.” She trailed a hand over the side of Fenton’s face. “How about we go tell Gyro we’re taking the rest of the day off? I’m not exactly the poster child for talking about feelings, and I’m actually cringing at the thought of it, but I think we should probably continue this conversation somewhere more comfortable. With food.”

Fenton smiled. “Sounds marvelous. Let’s go.”

*****

“You know,” Louie said as he dug into his lo mein. “In hindsight, it is totally obvious that Femme Fatale is Webby’s mom.”

“How do you figure that one?” Gosalyn asked as she passed the container of fried rice over to Violet.

“Well, the mutual love of traps should have been a good first sign,” Louie said. 

“Especially considering Femme Fatale put me, Dewey, and Louie in the exact same trap that Webby did when we first met. Same first impressions.” Huey said with a nod.

“I would have gone with how they both have a love for shiny things,” Dewey said, shrugging slightly before he grabbed an eggroll off the platter being passed around. “Webby loves glitter, Femme Fatale likes diamonds that explode. Makes total sense.”

“So...” Webby said nervously, looking around at her friends. Everyone had gathered at the mansion for a celebratory Chinese take-out dinner, filling in those who had stayed behind in Duckburg about what happened with F.O.W.L, to include the fact that Femme Fatale was, in fact, Webby’s mother. It had been her decision, and she was the one who made the announcement. She saw no reason to hide it, though she was anxious about how she would be perceived from here on. “You guys… The fact that my mom is a bad guy… Well, that both my parents were bad guys… Is it… is it going to be weird? I mean, do you guys even want—”

“Pink,” Lena said, cutting her off. “The next words out of your mouth better not have been some stupid nonsense about asking us if we still wanted to be your friends anymore because of your parents. Because if you think we’re going to ditch you as our friend because your parents are F.O.W.L agents, you have never been more wrong in your whole life.”

“But—” Webby said.

“Webby,” Lena said again, narrowing her eyes. “I am literally made of Magica De Spell’s shadow. When you found that out, did you stop thinking of me as your friend? Cut me off, never to be seen or spoken to again?”

“Of course not!” Webby exclaimed, sounding horrified at the idea. “I’d never!”

“Then there you go,” Lena said with a small shrug and the faintest of smiles. “You’re stuck with us, Pink.”

Webby smiled, looking relieved.

“Your mom may be part of F.O.W.L,” Huey said. “But you’re our family. Not hers.”

“Yeah, we called dibs,” Dewey added.

“And family sticks together, no matter what.” Violet said sagely.

Even as Webby’s shoulders relaxed, even as she felt like a weight was off her shoulders, she also knew that Huey was only half-right.

Femme Fatale was not part of her family.

Emmeline Vanderquack, on the other hand, was.

And maybe, maybe, someday, Emmeline would come back.

Because Webby was sure of three things:

One, she was loved by her family, the family that had started out so small and then had grown so big, almost overnight. She looked around the room, just to get a glimpse of everyone. There was her Granny, of course, and then her triplet “brothers”, a Scottish adventurer and billionaire, an angry sailor and his daring pilot twin sister, a reporter with a keen fashion sense, a ghost butler, a crash-prone pilot, a mad scientist who commanded a small army of sentient lightbulbs, a Greek demigod, a headless man-horse, a Moonlander, an armored superhero and his scary detective mother, a superhero with a flair for the dramatic, his tomboy daughter, a doctor and her politician girlfriend, and another small family made up of a professor, a cop, a girl made of shadows, an erudite magician in training, and—of late—a punk-rock scientist ex-evil spy.

The second thing was that her mother—the mother she barely knew—loved her immensely.

And the third thing was that, despite everything, Webby loved her mother back.

Webby smiled and ate her food, feeling warm and content and full of love.

Meanwhile, around the room, other conversations were occurring. In particular, Donald, Della and Launchpad sat together.

“Did your trap work?” Launchpad asked. “Figure out what’s haunting the garage?”

“Our trap worked so well, we caught the culprit while setting it up,” Della said.

Launchpad blinked. “Buh?”

Donald sighed. “It was Dewey this whole time. He found me and Della setting the trap, and we figured it out it was him.”

Launchpad frowned, glancing across the room at his best friend. “You sure? That doesn’t sound right.”

“We’re very sure, because the things we packed are still packed,” Della said. “We haven’t confronted him on it yet, though.” 

“We thought it’d be best to talk to you about it first.” Donald added. “Because if this is about you moving out, he’ll deny it if one of us suggests it, even if it is what’s bugging him.”

Launchpad thought for a moment, then he said, “I’m going to stay a while longer. Delay moving in with Drake and Gos for just a little while.”

“No, don’t do that,” Donald said instantly. “That’ll just make it worse.”

“No, I’ve got an idea,” Launchpad said. He told Dewey’s mother and uncle his plan, and the twins exchanged a glance.

But they both nodded.

“I think it’ll work,” Della said.

“It’s definitely worth a try,” Donald agreed.

In the kitchen, Drake was helping Mrs. Beakley refill pitchers of water and take care of some of the already accumulated trash.

“Hey, Mrs. B?” Drake said casually.

“Yes, Drake?” Mrs. Beakley prompted.

“I’m just curious,” Drake continued. “Well, more than curious, really. I just… I want to know. If the gas gun was so important, not just to S.H.U.S.H and F.O.W.L, but to you personally… Well, why’d you give it to a loser playing superhero like me?”

“Because you are not—and, at that time, were not—a ‘loser playing superhero’,” Mrs. Beakley said firmly. “You had evolved well past from wanting to be a superhero to truly being a hero. I saw it in your eyes, in how you were so determined to rescue Gosalyn. I saw the love you had for her, the passion and drive to do what was right. It reminded me of Albert, on that day. The day we thought we were going to rescue Emmeline. The day he...” Mrs. Beakley cut herself off with a deep breath. “The point is, I saw you for who you truly are and what you would become, even if you hadn’t seen it yourself yet. You had your heart in the right place from the beginning, but you weren’t truly ready to become a hero until you had something to fight for. And for you, that was Gosalyn. Once I saw that, I knew that you would be capable of doing the most good with the gas gun, as Albert would have wanted. Much more good than S.H.U.S.H could have done, that’s for sure.”

Drake smiled and turned to her. “Thank you. For believing in me.”

“Thank you,” Mrs. Beakley said. “For finally believing in yourself.”

They returned up to the main room and Drake set one of the pitchers of water on the coffee table in front of Fenton and said, “So, how’d your first day back to Gizmoducking go?”

“To be perfectly honest, not great,” Fenton admitted, poking at the food on his plate slightly. “I, uh, was hoping to talk to you about that. I know we had talked about as soon as I was back, we’d go back to our regular day-shift, night-shift thing, but, would you… I mean, would you be okay with keeping up the shift you’ve been doing while I was out for a while longer? Starting patrol in the afternoon? So that we kind of overlap? It’s just, I need more help transitioning back than I thought I did. I thought I was more prepared but everything was a disaster, mostly because I was too afraid to ask for help. I didn’t want to ask for help. But now I know I need it, and to ask for it. So? Would you? It’s okay to say no, though, I know it’s hard for you to keep going back and forth with your sleep schedule and keeping up with Gosalyn and—”

“Fenton, of course I’ll help you out,” Drake said, cutting him off. “We’ll make this work, however long we need to. That’s what friends do, they help each other out. Friends who happen to be superheroes especially.”

Fenton smiled at him. “Thanks, Drake.”

After a long conversation with Gandra, followed by another long conversation with his mother, Fenton had promised that he would do better about asking for help when needed and being more open and honest when he was overwhelmed, especially by memories and emotions tied to being captured by F.O.W.L.

This had also led to a surprisingly long but meaningful conversation with Gyro, in which Fenton explained that just the idea of working on the Gizmoduck armor while he was in it made him anxious. Gyro had been annoyed that Fenton didn’t just come out and say so, but also understood why he didn’t. They made an agreement that the two of them would work together on the magnet system to install in the armor, and when it came time to install it, they would create an environment that was more comfortable and relaxed for Fenton, working to prevent as few triggers as possible of memories of Black Heron’s lab. They already had a few ideas on how to do that: different lighting, Gyro and Gandra talking through each step they were taking as they did it, getting anxiety medication, and surrounding Fenton with people he trusted.

Slowly, Fenton was figuring things out. Slowly, he’d feel more comfortable and more confident in doing one of the things he loved most in the world. Slowly, he’d figure out a new normal. And he knew he would, eventually; he had a great support system to help him get there.

Although… Maybe he had needed some more time to collect himself before getting back in the armor.

“Really should have taken Elise up on that offer to go to a beach somewhere for a little while,” Fenton said to himself.

Fenton hadn’t realized he said that out-loud, though, until Storkules suddenly turned to him, a smile spreading across the demigod’s face.

“Perhaps,” Storkules said. “That can still happen.”

*****

“Hey, Webby, something came for you,” Dewey said as he entered Webby’s bedroom, where she was once more packing a bag—this time for a long weekend, instead of a mission or an adventure. The following morning, she was headed to Ithaquack for a much deserved vacation, while Dewey would be joining Launchpad and Drake on a trip to New Quackmore for a _Darkwing Duck_ fan convention.

Webby paused in her packing and came over to see what had arrived. Dewey passed her a postcard.

Webby smiled at the image on the postcard. It was Samson and Goliath, the Harland and Wolff cranes in Belfast.

Could it be…?

She quickly flipped it over.

There, opposite her name and address, were three words written in a beautiful and elaborate cursive:

_Hello and Welcome_.

There was no name or other identifying information to indicate who had sent the postcard.

But Webby knew exactly who the sender was.

Webby took the postcard and went over to her newest board, one she had quickly started to fill up. There were no mysteries here; she had everything and everyone figured out. The only family history depicted was her own: the family she had made and chosen. It was covered in pictures, of her with Granny, with the boys and Uncle Scrooge, with Donald and Della, with her friends. There were flowers and ticket stubs and lots of other tiny things she could find and preserve.

And, now, she added another piece of her family to the board, the Hello and Welcome—and all that it stood for—there for the world to see.

Webby smiled, pleased with herself and her heart singing with hope, hoping that her love and the love her mother had for her would lead to a change of heart. That Femme Fatale would once again become Emmeline Vanderquack.

Webby wasn’t going to hold her breath. But she wasn’t going to stop hoping.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So a lot of you may be wondering what lies in store for our heroes in my future stories regarding F.O.W.L. I’ll be honest, I’m wondering that, too. This was my last planned story in the F.O.W.L arc for the time being, mostly because I’m waiting to see what will happen with the finale, but also because I’m very excited to be introducing some new arcs that I’ve been dropping hints about for a while now. (Y’all got a pretty big hint in Chapter 4 of “A Shot in the Dark!”) I’ve got new characters to introduce, familiar characters to give bigger roles, and a lot of fun stuff, fluffy stuff, plot-twisty stuff, completely self-indulgent stuff, and more planned. Lots of stuff, guys. Lots of stuff. You’ll enjoy it, I promise! _DuckTales_ may be ending, but I'm still going to write stories in this universe, because life will always be like a hurricane in Duckburg.
> 
> At this point, this universe has largely followed Season 3 canon with some slight deviations (“Between a Rock and a Hard Place!” essentially serving as a substitute for “Let’s Get Dangerous!”, for example, as the reveal of Bradford’s connection to F.O.W.L to Scrooge and the family). In other words, these stories exist in an alternate but largely parallel universe to that of canon. More than likely, I’ll take the lazy way out and say F.O.W.L gets defeated in the events of the Season 3 finale (i.e. “off screen”) and reference the finale in future stories (similar to how I’ve done with the Moonvasion in the past, since I started these stories prior to the end of Season 2). One way or another, the end of _DuckTales_ is going to impact this fanfiction series. Particularly, time is going to start passing; slowly and more gradually than in real life, but it’ll happen. The main reason is, the kids can’t stay kids forever; they’re already slowly getting older, turning into teenagers, with teenager problems and figuring out the impacts they want to make on the world as adults—largely inspired by the adults that are currently in their lives. (Is this also a hint of what is to come in my stories? Yes. Yes it is.)
> 
> What does this mean for my F.O.W.L characters at this point? I’ve seen stuff in the comments already, specifically inquiring about the future of Femme Fatale and Steelbeak. Like I said above, I haven’t planned more for F.O.W.L, but this won’t be the last you see of those two. When they show up, their appearances will be a lot like Goldie’s in the show. Meaning, Femme Fatale and Steelbeak will occasionally take breaks from running around the world being chaotic evil besties to drop in on Duckburg so Femme Fatale can be a one woman hurricane to check in on Webby, trying—and failing—to convince her to join the Dark Side; they’ll occasionally encounter Scrooge and the rest of the family on adventures and have a team-up here and there; and Femme Fatale will generally fail to properly develop a functioning moral compass despite her daughter and mother’s best efforts, though she adores the former and will slowly get on better terms with the latter.
> 
> That being said, after how emotionally intense “Run A-F.O.W.L” has been, the next story is going to be much more of a breather for the characters. Everyone has been through a lot at this point, and they deserve it. Are there still going to be shenanigans? Hijinks? Adventure? Of course! Just the stakes aren’t going to be as high. So make sure you subscribe to “The Many Adventures of Duckburg’s Heroes!” series and be on the lookout for my next story, “Unconventional!”—featuring a Darkwing Duck convention, a locked-room mystery, an adventure featuring familiar Greek deities and some new ones, and more!


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